Shards of Shattered Roses
by A Mad Man With A Box
Summary: Originally, he was just going to visit the apartment. To say a last goodbye surrounded by her memories, but then it had escalated into more. Much, much more. -Post Doomsday-
1. Prologue

_This fic will be a bit slower-paced than Undead Future was but still full of impossible cliffhangers, deadly situations, awesome twists and general awesomenss_

_And hopefully (with lots of reviews) this fic will be a lot longer_

_Me and LilyRose XD have it all planned out and have had it planned for quite a while_

_But keep in mind that it took us Paradoxical Experts about 10 minutes (a long time) to get around the complexness of this story, but there shall be lots of explaining for you people_

**_Post Doomsday _**

Requiem  
by LilyRose XD

Standing alone  
Breathing in time  
As the dust on the floor  
Covers the crime...

**Disclaimer:** (Do we really need these things?) I think you all know I don't own Doctor Who. But I'd trade my goalie gear and iTouch for the rights of it.

* * *

Prologue

He'd visited the apartment first.

Originally that was all he was going to do, to just stand there and loose himself in remembrance and give himself up to the grief that constantly battered the walls that kept his emotions in check. To sink into the sorrow and let it swallow him and drown him until he became numb and cold. To just breathe in the scent of tea and mess and utter Rose and breathe it in so deeply as to swallow it completely until there was no smell left. Because he needed it most. And now more than ever.

He'd wanted to say goodbye to her here. Not just on the beach and in her room on the TARDIS. Because the apartment seemed to have so much more Rose than the TARDIS did. Even though she'd decorated her room in the TARDIS and made it utterly hers, full of mess and colour and memories and she'd spent more of her life in that room, she'd spent more of her time here.

So, to him, it had seemed fitting to come here.

It had been easy to get in, one quick buzz of the sonic screwdriver and the doorknob was turning in his hand. It had been much harder to actually step in.

The apartment wasn't quite at the stage of decline, but it was musty and sunbeams highlighted the swirling dust in the air. The hallway was half in darkness, but nothing could make it seem threatening. It was just empty. Empty and abandoned and lifeless and cold. And the Doctor had to take a deep breath and swallow before stepping in.

Immediately he was drawn to her room. But he wanted to go there last. As a final goodbye. He looked into the first room on his left, the door halfway open, or halfway closed. This was the room he'd been put in after his regeneration, but there was no bed in it now. It was just full of junk. Not junk, he realised, after taking a few steps into the room, but stuff. Pete's old stuff.

He doubted that the door had ever been opened before last Christmas when his regeneration had gone wrong and he'd been left to rest in here. And he doubted that it had ever been open since. Maybe Rose had come in here occasionally during her childhood, to sit on the floor amongst the boxes and odd knickknacks and pretend that her father was alive and this was his workroom and he was just out for a cup of tea, but Jackie wouldn't come in here.

He exited the room and moved across the hall to the door opposite, before realising that it was Jackie's room and backpedalling. He had no wishes to go in there, and nor had he any right either. But of course he smiled when he remembered the first time he ever set foot in the Powell Estate apartment. When a younger Rose had dragged a younger him in to explain about the shop window dummies and he shuddered when he thought about what Jackie had said to him, at first.

He moved up the hall, opening the next door on his right only to see that it was just a bathroom, and closing the door again. He deliberately ignored the door now opposite him, and moved into the living and dining area.

The dust was thicker here, shifting through the air and stirring up off the furniture that he came close to. He stood in the centre of the room, dust swirling around him like fog as he turned slowly on the spot and regarded the room in which Rose had spent so much of her childhood.

His eyes were immediately drawn to the photos, and in one long stride he was in front of them. He smiled to see pictures of Jackie and Pete, along with a baby Rose, even one of their wedding day before they had got to the church, where Pete had died in that car accident. He saw pictures of a baby Rose, a toddler Rose, Rose as a kid and as a teenager. Even some pictures of Mickey were there. And there was one of him.

It was from last Christmas, his only real Christmas. There was him and Rose laughing together at some long forgotten joke with those daft paper crowns on their heads sitting at the table eating Christmas dinner. Jackie must have taken the picture when they weren't paying attention. She'd probably guessed that they would have been irritated to find out they were having their picture taken, and they would have been, but now, now he was so thankful that she'd taken it.

He swallowed loudly and stared at the picture a moment longer, before picking it up and slipping it into his bigger-on-the-inside pocket along with all the pictures of Rose. Rose would have wanted him to take them and put them somewhere in the TARDIS. On the console maybe, or one of the walls, or in her room, but little did she know they would probably end up in his. He briefly looked into the kitchen before moving back out into the hallway.

He stopped outside her room. Waited. Breathed. His breath seemed so loud to his ears, but not nearly as loud as the thumping of both his hearts as he stood there outside her door. He didn't know why he was hesitating, it just seemed…right to stop and wait and remember. But then the handle was turning in his hand and the door was open and the memories were bared for him to see.

Her room was the usual mess, just like her room on the TARDIS, things scattered everywhere, surfaces crowded with magazines and books and clothes and other things. He breathed in deeply again, letting the familiar smell fool him for just a second that it was Rose beside him and not just all the things that smelt like her. As much as he wanted to properly go into the room and pick up objects and turn them over in his hands and sit there in her room forever, he didn't. Because then he would have never left. It was the same reason why he didn't really go into her room on the TARDIS. He looked on. He breathed it in. He listened to the quietness. But he never touched.

His eyes roamed the room greedily one last time. To try and drink in as much as he could and imprint it on his mind forever. Then he swallowed again, stepped backwards and shut her door with a sense of finality.

He padded down the carpeted hallway to the door and swivelled around, in the same place as he was when he came in; he looked everything over one last time before opening the door, swiftly darting through and tugging it shut behind him before sonic screwdriving it to lock it.

No one was ever going to come in here again. No one but him.

He'd visited the apartment first. To say a last goodbye.

But then it had escalated into so much more.

* * *

_Kind of long for a prologue...meh_

_I've already written the next (very dark) chapter_

_And am waiting for reviews before it is uploaded!_

_Sorry about the emoness of the Doctor, but it's so much fun to write him like this (and we all know he's like this anyway)_

_Thanks to LilyRose XD once again for everything (and might I add GET ON WITH IT AND START -cough- )_


	2. Crumbling Walls

_Next chapter is the start of the action, but I felt that this chapter was necessary (and awesome to write)_

_Sorry if I depress anyone _

Pain  
by LilyRose XD

Dwelling on the past  
Unable to let go  
Walking around in circles  
Eternally ones own foe...

**Disclaimer: **Don't own Doctor Who. (I'm too tired for a sarcastic comment)

* * *

I

Crumbling Walls

He stared out of the window at space.

His forehead was pressed against the glass, and he watched the stars blinking and the planets glowing and the emptiness in front of him. Where the Earth used to be.

Behind him were a few stairs, and then the TARDIS, one door half open, looking like a mother waiting for her son to come home from the war, she was waiting for him to come home. But first, she'd let him do what he had to do. He had to remember.

A few chunks of rock passed by the window, all that remained of the Earth. He remembered how they'd been so caught in events, they'd missed it. They'd missed the death of the Earth. Even though it was what they'd come here to see. He remembered Rose standing and looking out at the rocks floating in space that had come together to form the Earth and telling him.

_"It's gone…we were too busy saving ourselves, no one saw it go. All those years, all that history and no one was even looking."_

He said goodbye, turned his back and left.

**

He sat in the cold black snow.

All around him was the wreckage of the blown-up house. He watched some pieces of the house drift down from the sky and settle into the snow.

Distantly, he heard the sound of his old TARDIS dematerialising and taking his 9th form and Rose away from here and despite himself, he glanced up just to make sure it wasn't _his_ TARDIS. But no. His TARDIS was still there, solid and welcoming. He heard Charles Dickens chucking to himself away in the distance, and he sat in the snow blackened with soot, until he was numb, not only from the cold either.

He said goodbye, brushed off any clinging snow and left.

**

He stood on the windy rooftop.

The noise came at him from all directions. Traffic, people, the wind, the non-stop noise of the city. But he tuned it out. But he was quiet. He was still, while the wind blew his hair back and made his coat whisper.

In his mind, he could still see him and Rose sitting up here discussing the fact that her mother had slapped him. And now, alone, he felt that for a second he could feel the sting of it. But then of course the Slitheen spaceship had flown over their heads and distracted them. He glanced up himself, but there was no spaceship now, just clouds dashing past in the ever-persistent wind.

He said goodbye, turned on the spot, and with a swish of his coat, he left.

**

He bent over the hole in the concrete.

He'd never seen the Dalek's wreckage from here before. He'd been inside, below, with Rose and what he had thought at the time was the last Dalek in existence.

He hated himself as he remembered how he was going to kill that Dalek, for not what it had done, but for all it had represented, all the pain and loss in his life, and all he had seen was a Dalek. And Rose, how Rose had stopped him, she'd stood between the last Dalek and the last Time Lord, the last of two almighty races, and she'd stopped the war, just like that.

He said goodbye, swallowed, straightened up and left.

**

He stood amongst the skeletons.

The bright lights surrounding him hurt his eyes. But the sight around him hurt them more.

The skeletons, picked clean of flesh, still positioned as they had been alive. There was a skeleton in the middle of the room, half lying down, the silver chip in their forehead sticking out amongst all the white and cream. But it didn't stand out like the Doctor did, a dark blot in the white room. And so the living stood among the dead and remembered.

He said goodbye, let out a shuddering breath, and left.

**

He sat in the middle of the road.

It probably wasn't a very good idea, and he knew that, and he didn't care. He sat on the white line that ran down the middle of the road, thinking, breathing, reminiscing.

The man, the car, the screech of tyres, the thump and the shattering of the jug. All so fresh in his mind. He shouldn't have taken her here, he knew that, he'd always known that, but because her father's death was special to her, he'd taken her, he'd have taken her anywhere. And if he could, he would have taken her to Gallifrey.

He said goodbye, he rose, and left.

**

He looked on at the bomb site.

He stayed outside the barbed wire fence. His body stayed there, but his mind could get through, to relive it all.

The marching soldiers, the roaming spotlights, the blanket-covered object. And that ghostly child voice, still haunting his mind, no doubt it haunted Rose's too. But it had ended happily, for once; no one had died, for the first time in so long. So many years, and every adventure, there was a death. But not that time. Just that once.

He said goodbye, and he turned away and left.

**

He lay on the stone paving.

Unlike most of the other places he'd visited so far, it was full of people. Yet he ignored them, as if they weren't even there at all, and to him, they weren't. There were only the memories left now.

The blue light of the rift streaming up into the sky, the crack in the pavement that ran through the whole square. All of it gone, all of it non-existent now. Except in his mind, the only place he seemed sane. They had been the carefree days. Him and Rose and Jack and Mickey, saving the world and hardly lifting a finger in the process. But now, those days were gone. And it was just him.

He said goodbye, brushed himself off and left.

**

He sat amidst the machinery.

He could still hear the Dalek's voice. It echoed in his mind. All the time. Always asking. Always asking. But he didn't know.

He couldn't answer its question. One or the other, which one, he didn't know. And then it would retreat. It always retreated when the golden light came. The light of Rose. Rose could chase the nightmares away, she always did and she always would, but now she wasn't with him. Wasn't there. There was no one to stop the nightmares now. Nothing to stop them from invading his mind. Chanting, chanting.  
The Doctor. Coward or Killer?

He said goodbye, answered the question, and left.

**

He lay face down in the ash.

He remembered the pain of his gone-wrong regeneration, trying to help Rose while the pain still wracked his body, and then, finally his saviour from the pain. Steam.

He could feel miniscule pieces of the broken up spaceship on his back and ash and dust sifting down across his body and off, like sand. It trickled through his hair, he breathed it in when he took a breath, and he could feel it brushing against his eyes. And it was burning him. The spaceship had exploded, and burning pieces of rubble had fallen to Earth, along with the hot ash. And like the snow, it numbed his pain, his emotions. Now it was his saviour from the pain. He lay face down in the burning ash and let it numb him.

He said goodbye, spat out a mouthful of ash, and left.

**

He stared unseeing at the blank white walls.

Just that once, he'd been the Doctor. He'd healed the patients of their diseases. He'd healed Rose. He'd healed himself.

Again, there were people around him, but they might as well have been dust, for the notice he took of them. It was just him, and his memories, and the imaginary Rose beside him, holding his hand. But he couldn't go on like this. And though this had been a new beginning, supposedly it had finished up as a new end. A proper end. With no going back.

He said goodbye, turned on his heel and left.

**

He faced into the wind.

He'd made himself a promise that day. That he would never go off and leave Rose again. She always got into trouble if he did. And if he had kept the promise, she would still be beside him.

All around him, the grass rippled like waves and the branches swayed with the force of the wind that was nearly knocking him over. His coat billowed out behind him as if he was running and his hair was plastered to his face. But he thanked the wind for one thing. It shoved the tears back into his eyes.

He said goodbye, choked back a sob and left.

**

He stood on the broken glass.

All around him were kids screaming and yelling for joy. And they ignored him, like he ignored them. They'd each kept to themselves in a way. Each relishing the feelings that the situation had brought them.

Again, like he had heard in the snow, he heard the TARDIS dematerialising somewhere in the distance, carrying himself, Rose, Sarah-Jane and Mickey away, they had no idea what was coming. And that made him want to run there and scream at them to come back so he could warn them what was to come, and let them see what it would do to him. How he became reduced to this, revisiting all the places he went with Rose, because he longed to remember everything. Let them see what he was without them. Nothing.

He said goodbye, hunched his shoulders and left.

**

He stood outside the TARDIS, gazing through a repaired Time Window.

And instantly knew that something here was very wrong.

* * *

_So...the action is coming next chapter, finally =D_

_PLEASE REVIEW!! Even if you didn't really like the darkness, I didn't much either_

_And pick a favourite segment too. _

_My favourite was the Parting of the Ways one _

_Least favourite was Christmas Invasion one, it was too dark._

_Many thanks to LilyRose XD and all reviewers and story alerters and favourite authors-ers_


	3. Hearts

_If you're a squeamish person, just warning you now, you may "ewww" repeatedly in this chapter, especially if you faint upon the notion of dissecting a sardine =D_

_^^^THIS IS IMPORTANT^^^_

_Okay so, I was half-asleep when I posted the last chapter and I said that this was straight after 'Doomsday'_

_Well it's not, it's actually after Last of the Time Lords and Time Crash_

_But he's all sad-i-cal (yes that's a word) because the Master died and Rose is gone and so he's being emo_

_Enjoy!_

Beating Hearts  
by LilyRose XD

Beating slowly  
A background sound  
Crossing through time  
A life unwound...

**Disclaimer: **(Does anyone actually read these) I don't own Doctor Who...and I don't own Albert Einstein and his awesomeness. RIP Albert Einstein. Rest In Pie. (Or maybe you'd rather rest in Pi...I'm not sure.)

* * *

II

Hearts

There was a hospital in the window.

The Doctor gazed at the ward through the sheet of 'glass', forehead resting on its cool surface, palms turning white with the pressure of which he pressed them against the window.

He could see no beds at all, no pale patients lying dazed awaiting their fate, no scurrying nurses with clipboards, and no white-coated doctors. But there were cots. Rows upon rows of cots, each one containing, no doubt, a newborn baby. Most were sleeping peacefully but a few were screaming and crying and kicking their tiny little feet and waving their clenched fists about above their heads. The door opened and a nurse hurried into the room, she scooped up one of the sleeping babies and dashed out again.

The Doctor frowned and moved on to the next Time Window beside the first one.

He'd expected them to show him pre-Revolutionary France again. He'd thought that maybe, judging by the repaired Time Windows, that the droids had come back and were trying to steal her brain again. But maybe not. The hospital scene was definitely not the 18th century, more like the 1970's or 80's.

The next Time Window wasn't France either.

It was like a park, or a garden or a reserve. There were a few trees dotted around but apart from that, it was empty except for the long grass that was definitely in need of a cut. There were several young children playing with a soccer ball on the grass, their school bags dumped forgotten under one of the trees.

Through the window, the Doctor could hear their laughter and arguments about who would be on which team when the rest of the school kids got there. Behind the park there were concrete buildings riddled with graffiti. A mother appeared on one of the balconies high up on the building. She shouted something down at the kids and they stopped to listen. When she'd stopped shouting their shoulders slumped and they glumly made their way over to their bags and trudged off out of the Doctor's view, doubtless to do their dreaded homework.

The last Time Window in that room showed a school. Small wooden desks sat neatly in rows and at each desk was a young child, scribbling down the writing that had been put upon the whiteboard at the front of the room. A stern looking teacher sat at her desk just in front of the whiteboard and glared at the kids as if that would make them write faster. Then she got up with a considerable amount of effort and explained the writing, gesturing at it every few seconds for good measure.

The Doctor realised that the clock droids or whoever was controlling the ship must be stalking one of these kids, watching them grow up, newly-born at the hospital, at their apartment, at their school, everywhere they went, waiting for the right moment before they'd seize them to use them to run their ship.

Thinking about the ship made the Doctor turn around. It seemed quieter, than it had last time. There was still machinery whirring, he could hear it, but it was missing something, something that he couldn't quite place. He frowned at the technology around him, as if that would help.

He turned back to the school Time Window, only to find the kids scribbling again and the teacher sitting sternly at her desk again, and then she got up again and explained the exact same writing as before.

The Doctor watched her rant for a few minutes and then suddenly she was back in her seat again and the kids were scribbling again and then she got up and ranted again. Then she was back in her seat. She didn't sit down after the rant, but she suddenly disappeared from her spot beside the whiteboard and was back in her seat.

He watched it a few more times before finally understanding. The Time Window was replaying the scene again and again because that was the only time frame it was situated in. The droids must have set it to go from a certain time to another certain time and after that it would just repeat. And keep repeating forever until it was broken.

The Doctor moved on to the next room, he could grieve again for Rose later, he figured, after he'd found out what was happening here and stopped it.  
Of course, it's never that easy.

********

He moved through the ship, examining it as he went. Still wondering how the crew had fixed this ship from rubbish. The next room he came into made him remember something that Rose had told him when they were here last time.  
_"We found a camera with an eye in it, and there was a heart wired into machinery."_

The Doctor stared up at the eye in the camera lens that was just above his head, watching as it focused on him and blinked a few times. The whole camera suddenly shot towards him, forcing him to recoil sharply to avoid being hit. It titled slowly on its side and regarded him like that, inquisitive brown eye still blinking every so often and staring at him.

The Doctor whipped out the sonic screwdriver and buzzed it at the eye. It stopped blinking and simply closed its lens and retracted back to the wall. He reached up and grabbed it, ripping the whole camera away from the wall. He sonic screwdrivered it open and popped the eye out of the camera. He held up the eye in front of his own two and turned it this way and that, trying to see if there was anything significant about it, but apparently not. It was just a normal brown human eye.

He changed the setting on the sonic screwdriver and buzzed it at the eye for a minute or so. The sonic screwdriver dinged and then a name wrote itself in Gallifreyian symbols in the air. It had traced whose eye it was. The name meant nothing to the Doctor, he'd never heard of it before. It must have just been one of the crew's eyes, not an eye from a famous person in history. So he pocketed the eye and moved on.

He came across the heart next. There was a circular hole and looking through it, the Doctor could see various wires and pipes that dangled down into the space where the heart must have been but now was just empty space. The ends of the wires showed obvious signs that they had been ripped away from it, and looking down slightly, the Doctor could see a brown and shrivelled-up lump that seemed to be decaying.

Then there were several rooms working seemingly without human parts, with several monitors that just displayed static. He had come across no more Time Windows and so didn't know anything more about who the droids were stalking and for what reason.

The next room had a brain. It was resting in a clear brain-shaped container that was supported by a long metal pole that was bolted to the floor and came up to the Doctor's shoulder. Several wires and pipes ran into it and the brain was pulsing slightly.

The Doctor, sickened by the sight, ripped away the pipes and wires, causing some to shoot sparks and flail wildly, ignoring the silence that settled upon the ship as he pulled out this valuable source to its working. He pulled off the top half of the container and flung it across the room, reaching into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver again.

He gently prodded the brain with his index finger, before buzzing it with the sonic screwdriver. Once again, after a minute or so, a name wrote it in Gallifreyian in the air before him. But this time, the Doctor who it was.

They'd taken his brain. They'd stalked him through time and ripped his brain out to get their ship working. If they can't have Madame de Pompadour's brain then they'll get someone else's. One of the smartest humans in history, reduced to this, keeping their time-meddling ship working when he should be imagining theories and solving extremely complicated mathematics and science problems. Poor Albert Einstein. It was a disgrace to him.

The Doctor petted the brain absentmindedly. The shock and disgust he felt about this circled through his mind as he did so.

Suddenly, snapped from his daze, he lifted Albert Einstein's brain from its container, pulling out the remaining wires as he did so.

He reached into his bigger-on-the-inside pocket and rummaged around before finding a spare cloth. He wrapped up the brain in this before tucking it under his arm. He'd take it back to the TARDIS and return it to Einstein's body. The Doctor would dig up his grave and give the man's excellent brain back to him. It seemed important to do this.

The Doctor moved on. He searched through several more rooms before coming across a room that seemed to be in the very heart of the ship.

He stepped into the circular room, frowning at its lack of machinery. Apart from several pipes and wires that ran from the edges of the room along the ceiling to the middle where they dropped down and hung just above the surface of a tall cylindrical dais. There was nothing on the dais except for another of those clear containers, though this one was empty it was like the one that had enclosed Einstein's brain. Though this one was not shaped like a brain, but like a heart.

This was what they were going to do. The droids or whoever had fixed up the ship were going to follow someone's life, and then when they thought that they were 'complete,' were going to rip out their heart to get their ship back to full capacity. The other heart they had obviously wasn't good enough; they needed someone else's heart, no doubt someone famous in history that was known for their compassion and care. But then he remembered. Not someone from history, well not human history at least, but from their present.

The droids were going to stalk someone from the 21st century and rip out their heart, just for the sake of their ship.

* * *

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_...I think you get the point..._


	4. Keyhole

Does anyone actually read these? Do tell.

Again, this is set post-Martha, pre-Donna, though it's about Doomsday

Confused? I certainly elephant.

I need to stop quoting stuff...

Reaction  
By LilyRoseXD

Grief beyond meaning  
Fault beyond doubt  
Thrown into the past  
Unable to shout...

**Disclaimer: **A repudiation or denial of responsibility or connection. (I own nothing - no, not even Einstein's brain, or the couple of quotes that I added in)

* * *

III

Keyhole

The Doctor was involved now. There was no way he could just leave and forget about this. No way could he just whisk himself away in the TARDIS and go back to his grieving for everything that he had lost. He was part of the events now. He'd do everything in his power to make sure the clock droids didn't ever mess up someone's life again. But there had been no sign of them yet. Where were they?

Maybe they were already inside the Time Windows, hauling their victim to their feet and dragging them off back to their spaceship for dissection. Or they already had them, had already cut out their heart and were preparing to bring it here, to encase it here forever, hook it up to cold metal wires and tubes and let it run their despicable cannibalistic spaceship.

But then the Doctor heard them.

There was no mistaking the uniform, evenly-spaced sounds of their clockwork feet on the solid concrete ground. And then their shadows flickered through the doorway, ahead of their owners, throwing their figures upon the circular walls. They walked like the dead, like Cybermen, like an army eagerly marching to battle.

He stood calmly and stoically and waited for them to enter through the doorway. But only one entered, and then stopped. It held up a hand and the sounds of other droids' feet halted abruptly outside the doorway.

The Doctor regarded this leader-like droid. They had obviously advanced while he'd been away.

Instead of the Period costumes they had been wearing last time; it had a toe-to-neck tightly-fitting suit that resembled human skin, somewhat. Over that, it had a full business suit, complete with tie and jacket. It also had skin – whether it was real human skin or prosthetics, the Doctor wasn't sure – on its face, with a straight moulded nose, eye sockets with possibly real eyeballs in them, altogether too-perfect eyebrows, a mouth filled with pointed teeth, and normal-enough looking ears.

The Doctor saw that the teeth were actually pieces of bone that had been sharpened into fangs, surrounding a completely metal tongue. It even had hair that kind-of resembled the Doctor's own, brown and messy, but was slightly too messed up, like someone had collected strands of hair and badly stitched them together. Which was almost certainly what had happened, the Doctor figured.

Altogether, it was a grotesque figure when examined closely, but could pass for human from a distance. A very long distance.

Its eyes focused on the Doctor, then there was complete silence for a few seconds, and then its too-perfect eyebrows narrowed in his direction. It opened its mouth to speak, the clockwork jaw making it look almost comical as it widened to inhuman proportions. When it spoke, its sharp teeth clacked together horribly.

"How did you get in here?" It asked the Doctor.  
"Simple," answered the Doctor. "I came in through the front door, took a left, two rights, up a staircase, round several corners, down four flights of stairs and through a hallway."  
"Most amusing," it replied.

The Doctor thought his brilliant sarcasm would be wasted on them like it had been last time, but no, maybe they actually had some brains this time. Then he realised the implications of this thought, and immediately hoped not.

"What's all this for?" the Doctor asked, gesturing at the heart-container and wires behind him, even though he already knew what it was for.  
"This, is our salvation."  
The Doctor rolled his eyes, knowing a villain rant was coming.  
"We shall remove the heart from our victim and connect it up here, so our ship will move again. It can't move without a heart, you know."  
"Oh, of course, every ship needs a heart. What a great conclusion that is."  
"Listen, intruder-"  
"Doctor," the Doctor corrected.  
"Ah! A doctor! Just what we need. You can help us with the dissection."  
The Doctor motioned at the sharp tools that served as hands for the droids.  
"I think you've got it covered."  
"Suit yourself!" it shrugged robotically.  
"Now! Where was I? …Listen, Doctor, I don't think it's wise to poke fun at your captors, your sarcasm will get you nowhere in this world."  
"Captors?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow. "I don't recall being captured…"  
The lead droid turned its head a sickeningly one-hundred and eighty degrees around to stare at the droids crowding behind it in the hallway.  
"Take him away," it said to several guards at the front.  
The Doctor rolled his eyes again. Different race, same macho lines.

All the Doctor's apparent bravado was a complete act. Best to let them think he was completely harmless and not planning to foil their plot like he had last time. He didn't want to appear a frightened, gibbering fool. He had to seem indifferent. Resilient, but harmless all the same.

So he allowed himself to be led back to what he supposed was the main room, where the TARDIS still sat in a corner, and the three Time Windows of the hospital, park and school still played over their few minutes of time again and again.

The droids surrounded him in a large circle, blocking off the TARDIS's doors, with the lead droid inside the circle opposite him.  
"Doctor. Doctor…where have I heard that name before?"  
"No idea," replied the Doctor, looking bored with the whole situation. In reality his mind was whirring, trying to decipher as much as possible about these droids, why they wanted a heart when they wanted a brain before, how much they knew about him, how hard it would be to try and escape and the risk of injury involved in that, and of course, at the back of his mind was Rose, and the frustration he felt about how every time he went somewhere, something would happen. Why couldn't he just grieve in peace?

He pushed the grief and pain he still felt, over Rose, over the death of the Master, to the back of his mind. He needed to fix this first, to find out exactly what the clock droids were doing and why. Then he could grieve.

The Doctor sat down on the cold ground, legs out in front, leaning back and putting his weight on his hands and looking up at the lead droid.  
"So why don't you tell me all about your evil plan? Isn't that what the crazy evil villain usually does?"

"Enough of the sarcasm! Don't you see how far we've come, Doctor," it spat in its robotic voice that had a trace or two of emotion.  
"Before, we had a plan, and it was good one apparently, but it didn't seem to make sense to me. I was shunned by the other droids for my ideas. They dismissed me and tried to carry out their plan but ended up _failing_ in the end. I'd had nothing to do with them after the way they treated me. I was imprisoned! Down, in the belly of the ship I had to stay while they opened up more and more Time Windows searching for the brain of Madame de Pompadour. It was a joke. Why would they need _her_ brain? It seemed ludicrous to me. I wanted the brain of a true artist. Someone who had changed their little Earth by using his mind.

"So I chose Einstein. The others weren't concentrating on their little rebellious prisoner. They didn't notice me siphon off some of the energy they used to create their windows. I used this energy to create my own little windows into his life. I searched and searched, trying to find a moment when I could steal him and bring him back. To show the others how brilliant I was, how much better his brain would be over that French tart's. And then we could dissect him, hook up his brain to machines to get our damn ship to work. But then I realised, I didn't want to steal this little man, who still had so much to do with his life. So I created another window, just after he'd died. And I took his fantastic brain then. Because I'd watched him his whole life, and he was a complete marvel, and for some reason, I couldn't stand to take him away from his people, who respected him so much.

"So I got his brain, and I preserved it for a while, while watching the other droids try to find the moment that Madame de Pompadour's brain was complete. I watched through my eye-cameras. I'd invented them, you know. I had been the only droid with some imagination and creativity. Maybe that's why they hated me. Because I was _different _from them. I even gave myself a name, Nefaro, something they'd never thought to do, our _race_ doesn't even have a name. We're just 'the clock droids.' And I stood by and watched as their whole plan was foiled…by…by," he paused, thinking.

Then Nefaro swivelled his eyes around to focus on the Doctor.  
"By you," he said, teeth still clacking with every syllable. He narrowed his eyes at the Time Lord.

"After you'd wrecked their plan, I was the only one left. Because I hadn't followed them into France like all the other droids did. I was smart. I survived. I was alone, but I survived. Not only that, I rebuild myself. I created more Time Windows and stole some poor sap's brain and refitted it into my own head. Now at last, I could be truly unique, I could be different, I could re-create us. And so I did, I re-created our race out of nothing. Rubbish, spare parts, but I gave them all a brain as well. I didn't just re-build us, I improved us. Of course, I never gave anyone as big a brain as my own. But enough brains for them to think for themselves, to improvise, to imagine and create. And then, then I realised what the ship really needs, it doesn't just need a brain to run it. It needs a heart to lead it."

He paused again, and motioned to several of the surrounding droids. The blades that connected to their wrists were pushed into his back lightly and he knew he had no choice but to follow Nefaro across the room. Nefaro pulled a curtain aside to reveal another window. But the Doctor couldn't see what was inside it, because it was blocked with Nefaro's body. Then he heard him speak again.

"I searched through the ages, billions of histories of humans, searching for the right person. Someone who could care for people, could be compassionate and kind, even for her enemies. But I found no one. No one was just right. Until I remembered. I remembered what I'd seen before."  
The Doctor was getting a deep sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, not believing it, because even his life couldn't be this horrible. If Nefaro noticed the Doctor's discomfort, he didn't comment on it. He just continued.

"And I knew, that _she_ was the one. She had heart. As you knew oh so well, Doctor."  
"No!" the Doctor managed to choke out, his voice hoarse.  
"Oh yes. Prepare to live through your worst nightmare. Watching, watching, but unable to help. And it's your own fault. You meddled, Doctor. You meddled in time before and so now here is your punishment. And you may only watch."

The Doctor struggled as he was pushed and shoved towards the window, with sharp blades pressing against the back of his suit. Nefaro moved aside, and the Doctor could see exactly what was in the window, and yet his brain still wouldn't accept it. Through the numbness that was now invading his body, creeping up from his toes, he heard Nefaro.

"Oh, and Doctor? Thanks for the time ship. It'll give us the energy to create more Time Windows."

And then a droid opened the window and shoved the Doctor through roughly, and he landed on the living room rug in Rose's apartment. He heard the window slam shut behind him, and knew that he was stuck here. Stuck in Rose's childhood.

* * *

Yeah, I thought you might have already guessed, but ah well, you have no idea of the end =D or the outrageously complex middle and such and such  
Thanks once again to the incredibly awesome LilyRoseXD for all the pointless things that she does

If you know the lines that are actually quotes from other things, then you get a virtual badger or TARDIS

OH! I always forget something...SORRY ABOUT LONG VILLAIN RANT. But how awesome was it? It's about 500 words I think. Took forever =D Every story needs a long villain rant

Thanks to all reviewers, your support makes me as happy as when it's QUOTE OF THE DAY time =D


	5. Enveloption

_No, Enveloption isn't a word, but it should be, it's like envelop, but with a -tion, the noun for envelop is actually enveloper, but it should be enveloption _

Stuck  
by LilyRoseXD

Stuck in the past  
Unhealthily so  
Because stuck there too long  
He won't want to go...

**Disclaimer: (**Are these really necessary for every chapter?) once again, how could I own such brilliance as Doctor Who? Exactly. I own the things I own - mainly my Pete the Dragon tail and this plot.

* * *

IV  
Enveloption

The Doctor was stuck here now. Only the Time Windows could take him back to the droid ship and they were only open for a few minutes. He had no idea when any other Time Windows were – the ones that he'd seen in the droid ship could be at any time, aside from the hospital one, but he knew that the Time Window that he'd been pushed through was further ahead than that one. He couldn't go wandering off either. Because Time Windows would appear near Rose. Which would mean that he had to stay near Rose. Which meant that he had to stay here. Which was impossible.

But there was no other way to get back apart from the Time Windows without the TARDIS, and the TARDIS was stuck on the droid ship. The Doctor could imagine them now. See Nefaro and his improved batch of droids circling the ship, trying desperately to unlock its secrets. Though the Doctor _knew_ that nothing could get in, he couldn't help feeling worried.

The Doctor had come to a decision. But he hadn't really because there was only one option to take, and so taking the only option wasn't choosing between anything so there was no discussion about whether or not to take that option, because he had no other choice. He'd have to stay here, close to Rose, which meant close to Jackie – he shuddered - and wait for a Time Window to pop up so he could get back to the droid ship and stop them from ruining Rose's life. Who knew when they'd come to take her back to their ship? Whenever they deemed her 'ready', so the Doctor had to be there, all the time, in case a Time Window popped up, or the droids came and he had to stop them.

He thought that maybe he could just wait here until they came, ignoring all other Time Windows that appeared, but no, that meant that the droids would interfere with Rose's life, technically they already had, and the Doctor couldn't bear to have them ruining and changing her life. If he was to stay though, he'd have to watch out, his past self was running around out there, looking for trouble, and here, he'd probably find it. And if his ninth self met Rose before he was supposed to, everything else would fail.

He began to think about when Time Windows might appear in her life. But then he heard footsteps outside and the rustle of plastic bags, a key in the lock and then Jackie's voice from the hallway. He spared himself a second for a deer-in-the-headlights expression, but then he realised how serious this situation had just gotten and in one movement sprang up and dived behind the couch just as Jackie entered the living room.

He hit his head on the wall, which caused a hollow thud to resonate from the spot. He bit his lip to keep from crying out with the pain that had begun in his head but he couldn't help a small whimper that escaped. He was sure Jackie would have heard it, but apparently not because he heard her bustle into the adjoining kitchen and put down what he presumed were shopping bags. He heard her unpack the shopping bags and then a drawer was pulled open and then shut again and then she came back into the living room.

The Doctor heard a rhythmic metallic thud on something flat and soft, a palm maybe, and then heard a whooshing movement…like she had thrown something, then he had a split second to dodge the frying pan that came straight for his head. He had no idea how she had known exactly where his head was, but he figured he'd work that out later, for she was sure to pull the couch away from the wall and see him and that would make this already horrible situation a lot worse.

He exploded out from behind the couch, vaulting over the back and jumping off the seat and then sprinting down the hallway. He heard her rip the couch away from the wall and grab the frying pan and so he opened a door and ducked inside. He was in Jackie's room. And he knew that was a big mistake.

His eyes darted around for somewhere to hide but there was nowhere really big enough, so he decided to hide behind the door and dart out when she came in. He heard her footsteps as she charged down the hallway before entering some other room, coming to the conclusion that he wasn't in it, and then opening her own door. He held his breath as she flung her door open and then it bounced back against his foot and begun to close again. He hadn't counted on the fact that she might open the door so wide that it hit him. So now she knew he was there.

She wasn't allowed to see his face, that he was certain of, so he drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees, hiding his face from her penetrating gaze, and if need be protecting vital organs and bones from her frying pan.

He heard her turn around and then she must have seen him. He peeked out through one eye and saw her anger wavering as she saw him looking so helpless, this was the moment he'd been hoping for, and he sprang up and was out the door and had shut it in the time that she blinked in confusion. He'd bought himself five to ten seconds of time at least, so he made for the cupboard in the hallway.

He opened it swiftly, hoisting himself up to a shoulder high shelf and sweeping towels out of the way before wriggling into the space and replacing the towels in front of him, leaving a gap for his hand to dart through and close the cupboard door.

He waited in the dim light that filtered through from the hallway. He held his breath for a while but heard no footsteps approaching the cupboard. She mustn't have seen him climb in. But her anger would definitely be back, and if she found him, then nothing would defer the hand that held the frying pan, and he'd feel the full force of it.

So he waited with bated breath as she stomped up and down the hallway, into all the rooms, searching for him but not finding him. Then she opened the main door and went out for a minute or two, no doubt to snoop around, trying to find him behind the bins or something. She came back in and must have concluded that he'd gone for she went back into the kitchen and presumably put down the frying pan.

Slowly, he relaxed. She hadn't found him yet, and in the morning he could find some other hiding spot that was better. Not that this hiding spot was bad. As long as she didn't take away too many towels, she wouldn't find him. And while he was here, he could think.

All he had to do was get a better hiding spot, somewhere closer to the kitchen so he could eat, and then wait for a Time Window to appear, or if the droids came before he could get back then to stop them from taking Rose's brain and then going back through a Time Window. The situation wasn't nearly as bad as he'd thought. As long as Jackie didn't find him and kick him out, he'd be fine.

So he lay there on his back on the shelf, staring up at the bottom of the next shelf. He managed to get a hand into his pocket and pulled out various objects and tinkered. Occasionally sonicing them to see what happened. Something rolled out of his pocket and he grabbed it, judging by its spherical shape for it to be some kind of ball. He positioned a towel against the cupboard door and bounced the ball off the towel for a while, muting the sound with more towels on the floor of the shelf. Then he soniced it and by the dim blue light realised he was holding the eye. He hastily shoved it back into his pocket.

********

Then, at a time he judged to be around three am, his stomach growled loudly. When did he last eat? A long time ago. He hadn't been eating well lately, ever since the Master had died and he'd fallen back into the state that he'd been in when Rose had gone, he hadn't been eating much, or doing much at all. Except grieving.

He realised that his own stomach would give away his position if he didn't eat something soon. He rummaged around in his coat pockets but didn't find anything eatable. He sighed, he'd have to risk it and get up.

He reached out through the gap in the towels for his hand and pushed the cupboard door open. He swept the towels to one side again and lowered himself out, silently shutting the door behind him. He crept along the hallway, stopping every few seconds but hearing nothing. He was just about to enter the kitchen when he tripped over something and fell on his face. Cursing in Gallifreyian, he picked himself up before realising that Jackie had probably heard him and he stopped cursing and muttering. He glared at what looked like a small wooden train in the dim light.

Upon entering the kitchen, he saw a calendar and realised that he had no idea what year this was. The calendar revealed it to be 1991, four years after Rose was born and Pete died. He moved on to the cupboards, trying to find something eatable as silently as possible.

After fruitless searching for several minutes, he'd found nothing in the cupboards but a pear sitting behind a jug. This made no sense because Jackie had brought in shopping bags when he'd first got here, but there was no food in the cupboards. He couldn't risk opening the fridge because as soon as he opened the fridge door, the light in the fridge would come on and reveal his position. He sighed and picked up the lone pear, glaring at it distastefully, still wondering where all the food was. He looked through the other cupboards and drawers as well, finding nothing but cutlery, pots and utensils. But strangely enough, there was no frying pan…

Then he realised he'd fallen right into Jackie's trap.

He smacked his palm against his forehead and groaned. Of course, why didn't he see it before? Everyone needs food eventually, she'd left him alone and waited for him to get hungry and come out of his hiding spot to scavenge food, but she'd moved it all so he couldn't get any even if she didn't discover him. So then why had she left the pear? She couldn't know that he didn't like pears before he even met her. That made no sense at all. So she must have just not seen it because the jug would have obscured it from view. But to him, it made the cruel trick even crueller.

He heard the rhythmical banging of the frying pan against her palm before he saw her framed in the doorway, an extremely severe look on her face. Then Jackie lifted the frying pan above her head and it gleamed for a second in the faint light coming from the hallway, and then he saw the banana sitting tucked between two cook books, right behind her head.

He chewed his lip, wondering if he could grab the banana and escape without being caught. While he was thinking, she moved towards him slowly with an extremely terrifying smirk on her face, frying pan still raised above her head. Because he was expecting her to bring it down on his head, not throw it as she actually did, he did the first thing that came to mind when he saw it flying towards him, and that was to chuck the pear at it. Which didn't really help at all.

Albeit it slowed down the frying pan slightly because the impact of the pear made it flip over on itself. And by then, the Doctor had no time at all to do anything and so the frying pan hit him in the chest, sending him flying backwards into the kitchen counter. It was at this point that he realised that she had seen his face, which made this whole event even worse.

He straightened up from his natural reaction to clutch his aching ribs and hissed in a breath. He began looking for a way out but because Jackie was still blocking the door, he couldn't see one. And so he did the only thing he could think of doing to get out of this situation, which was to scoop up the mess of a pear, fling it at her face and run like hell.

The mashed pear connected with her face with a wet splat that the Doctor just managed to hear as he sprinted past her. Though he knew that she would only be occupied trying to get the pear out of her eyes for about ten seconds, he unnecessarily reached up and grabbed the banana on his way out of the kitchen.

He shoved the yellow fruit into his pocket and ran through the apartment, ribs twinging with pain still, already hearing Jackie stomping out of the kitchen after him. He sprinted the length of the hallway and then ripped open the front door and was out of the flat.

He didn't dare stop though; Jackie's wrath would be horrendous after he had gotten away again, so he ran around the corner on the balcony and kept running. He passed the stairs without thinking, only realising after he was a good five metres away that going down the stairs would have been the smartest thing to do to get away from her. But it was too late to go back now, he could hear her shutting her front door with a bang and she was stampeding after him.

So he ran on, past another two left corners before realising that he'd run in a complete square and was back where he started. He could see the top of the stairs again just around the corner but knew that Jackie would see him before he managed to turn the corner and get out of her sight, so he looked around frantically for a way out. He saw an open window just a half a metre or so ahead of him and without thinking, dived through the gap between the top of the window and the window sill.

He landed face down on some sort of colourful carpet. He sat up slowly, clutching his ribs which were even more painful now that he had landed on them, and right in front of him, teddy bear being clutched loosely with one limp arm, was a gaping Rose.

* * *

You've got to feel sorry for the poor Doctor

This is the second time he's been at the receiving end of Jackie's wrath when she has a heavy object in my fanfics

I don't know which is worse...

Jackie's dictionary wrath from Elves and Aliens, or Jackie's frying pan wrath from Shards of Shattered Roses...

Hmmm...if you've read both, tell me what you think

I should start a poll for that

Review =D


	6. Respite

Sorry about not updating last weekend, but it was a four-day weekend because it was Cup Weekend (and I was going to choose Shocking and then my Mum told me not to because it were in a wide gate so I chose Roman Emperor instead -.- , Aussie's you know what I'm talking about, everyone else thinks I'm crazy. Meh) and so I was away at Lammington007's house the whole time without internet and couldn't write

So, to make us even I give you a three thousand word chapter

And now I shall complain

**Note to Readers: Skipping over this rant means you may not complain to me about not updating. It's all in there.**

I won't update regularly like I normally do for the next few weeks because, here in Australia, it's the end of the school year and it's a time when the teachers realise they have more stuff to teach us than they can in the amount of lessons we have left so we get it for homework instead. And, yes I know I'm not in Year 12 and shouldn't be complaining, but if you saw all the crap I have to do which is totally pointless but I have to do anyway, you'd be almost killing yourself too.

I mean, we had a three day week this week because the rest was a public holiday, and yet, everyone was DEAD on Friday. It was like everyone was in Term 3. Because term three has no holidays at all so everyone just dies and leaves a shell of themselves to do the work. But anyway, in a couple of weeks, school will be over and I'll write a whole heap more.

So if you're annoyed at me for not updating

Just think,

Would you rather

Get a crap chapter now

Or wait a week or so and get a much awesomer chapter?

Ah ha

My logic wins =D

**Note to readers: End rant**

This chapter is half of Dramaqueen321's birthday present. Happy Birthday, Sara!

**Disclaimer: **I own...errr...oh yeah, I own the 8 milkos that I have left =D LilyRose gave me 293 about a month and a bit ago...

Out Of Control  
By LilyRoseXD

This wasn't supposed to happen  
The story hasn't been told  
Things are becoming confusing  
Something bad is about to unfold...

And this chapter

_Is dedicated to my uncle who died a few days ago. You were so awesome, when everyone else asked me how I was and how school was going; you asked me if I wanted to play playstation. Rest In Pie, Uncle. _

* * *

V

Respite

As soon as the Doctor saw Rose, he jumped up and backpedalled away from her. He backed right into the window and bashed his head against it. He went stumbling dizzily away from the window and fell flat on his face again. He groaned in pain into the carpet. He gradually sat up again and rubbed the back of his head with one hand while the other clutched his ribs which were aching even more now that he'd landed on them _again_.

Rose was still standing there gaping, her left arm was clutching the brown furry arm of a medium-sized teddy bear that had its legs, other arm and body trailing on the floor because she was grasping it so loosely. She was wearing pale blue pyjamas with little orange butterflies printed on them and her eyes were red-rimmed as she must have just woken up.

The Doctor tried to form a coherent sentence for what he was doing there but most of his brain was in shock and the tiny portion that wasn't was busy trying to help his ribs and his head. So they both gaped at each other for half-a-minute or so.

Then Rose seemed to wake up fully and stared at him with wide eyes.

"What're you doing in my room?" she asked, curiously.  
The Doctor struggled to think of an answer. What could he say to her? His head was still pounding and his ribs still smarting and he was trying to ignore it and wishing he could get back to the TARDIS to fix them but knowing also that even if he could, he wouldn't, because then he wouldn't be with a toddler Rose and she'd be asleep when he came back and he might never have the chance to talk to her again.  
"I'm…," he decided to stick with the truth for now, it's not like she would remember this. She was too young.  
"I'm the Doctor. And I was running away from the drago—I mean your mother, and then I fell through your window and hurt my head."  
She frowned at him and said, "Doctors don't hurt themselves."  
"Why not?" he asked.  
"Cause they're doctors. They make peoples better. They don't hurt themselves. Ever."  
"Well, this one does. But it wasn't my fault. Your mother hurt me, really."  
This statement caused Rose to glare at him, and even though she was four and not twenty, the Doctor still thought that that glare could stop Daleks in their tracks.  
"No one says bad things about my Mum," she told him sternly.  
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it," he lied.  
"Better," she said, grinning a bit now.  
"I'm Rose," she told him unnecessarily. "What's your name?"  
"I'm the Doctor."  
She frowned at him again.  
"No," she said firmly.  
The Doctor frowned too. No? No one had ever said 'No' when he told them his name, usually it was 'Doctor who?' or something like that. But no one had ever said 'No' to him before.

"What do you mean, 'No'?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and warm.  
"You're not's a doctor if you can't fix yourself."  
"But it's my name!" he protested.  
She just shook his head at him while glaring. It was quite a sight matched with the teddy bear and orange butterfly pyjamas.  
He felt like throwing up his hands, but he didn't.  
"Until you can proves you're a doctor, I'm calling you Doc."  
"But-" he objected.  
"NO!" she interrupted, still glaring.  
The Doctor sighed. Same old Rose.

Should he really stay? He asked himself. It was dangerous, surely, but he needed to if he was going to get back through a window into the droid ship. Rose would forget him if she was little, but what if he couldn't find a window? What if he was stuck here and then Rose got older and then remembered him later on and caused a paradox? What then? He didn't know. He sighed again. He'd have to stay, for now, and just hope that a window appeared soon. Was there any way to predict them? He didn't know. He wasn't sure if they appeared whenever the droid's felt like checking to see if she was 'complete' yet or if they planned out carefully when they'd rip a hole in time to check on her. What if—

His train of thought was interrupted by Jackie's footsteps thundering down the hallway, towards Rose's room.  
"Rose," he whispered urgently.  
She turned her face towards him, instantly assuming the serious expression that was on his face.  
"What?" she asked, all of her glare gone.  
"You can't tell your mother about me, alright?"  
"Why?" she asked.  
"I'll explain later," he said hurriedly. "Just don't say anything about me. I wasn't here. You've never seen me. Alright?"  
She nodded and his eyes darted around the room for a hiding place but finding none.  
"Under," she said and pointed to her bed. He nodded and crawled under her bed just as the door was flung open and Jackie rushed into the room.  
"Rose?" Jackie asked softly, moving towards her daughter who stood in the middle of the room.  
"What was that noise I heard? You shouted 'No' just before. What happened, sweetheart?"  
"I…" Rose struggled to think of a lie, biting her lip in thought. She glanced towards her bed for a second before returning her eyes to her mother who was gazing at her concernedly.  
"There was this man," she began.  
The Doctor cursed silently, dragging his fingers down his face and then through his hair, shaking his head all the while. He shouldn't have come here. He shouldn't have talked to her. It was all going wrong.

Jackie was intrigued. He could tell without even seeing her. She tried in vain to keep her voice level though.  
"Was he in a suit and coat? With brown hair?" she asked her daughter.  
Rose shook her head, but of course, the Doctor couldn't see that, so he waited with bated breath while the silence dragged on.  
"No," Rose said finally. "He was bald and old. Like you're old, Mummy."  
The Doctor bit his lip to keep from laughing. Rose hadn't given him away, but he still had no idea what she was talking about.  
He heard Jackie sigh through her nose in exasperation.  
"Rose," she said gently, "that's your father. Pete. Do you remember?" Jackie's voice wavered a bit at the end and nearly cracked, but Rose didn't notice.  
"Yeah…" she answered slowly, and then she continued. "So there was Dad there…and then this car cames around and ran into him and then I said 'NO' and then I woke up," she finished.  
The Doctor breathed out in relief. She was a smart one.  
He heard Jackie walk over and sit on the bed and then he hissed in pain when the bed sagged and touched his ribs.  
"Rose," Jackie said, "tell me if you have this dream again, alright? I need to know. We'll sort it out."  
Jackie got up again and the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief again.  
"Go back to bed, sweetheart. We'll talk more in the morning, alright?"  
Then the bed sagged again, but not quite so much signifying that Rose had gotten back into her bed and then Jackie came and knelt by her bed. The Doctor scrabbled away from Jackie, because if she bent down to look, she'd come face to face with the Doctor and then he'd be in massive trouble. But she didn't. She merely sang a lullaby out of tune to Rose, during which the Doctor tried not to laugh by biting his lip again and then she got up and walked out of the room as silently as she could.

He crawled out from under the bed and dusted himself off, making a disgusted face at all the dust and cobwebs that had managed to tangle into his hair. He heard Rose giggling and turned and grinned at her.

"That was brilliant!" he told her, completely truthfully.  
She grinned shyly at the compliment.  
"Doc?" she asked.  
The Doctor inwardly sighed, not liking this new nickname but knowing that he'd do nothing to stop it because it was Rose.  
"Yes, Rose?"  
"Why can't Mummy know about you?" she questioned.  
"Because…I'm your imaginary friend, Rose," he thought quickly. "And if your mother sees me, she'll try and take me away from you and I'll get hurt."  
He thought that maybe he'd overdone it a bit too much judging by the horrified look on her face.  
"Noooo," she said urgently but softly, remembering to stay quiet.  
She jumped out of her bed and clutched his calf desperately.  
He patted her hair slowly.  
"As long as I've got your leg, she can't take you away," Rose muttered into his trousers. The Doctor smiled sadly at her.  
"No one must know that I'm here, alright? Because then they'll want to steal me for themselves and I don't want that because I'm _your_ imaginary friend."  
She loosened her hold on his leg and looked up at him, frowning.  
"But you're not imaginary," she observed.  
"Yes, I am. But I'm a special imaginary friend that everyone can see but I can only belong to one person. I'm _your_ imaginary friend, but if you don't protect me from your mother, she'll steal me away so she can have me as her imaginary friend," The Doctor inwardly shuddered at this thought.  
"But because you protect me from them, I will do whatever you wish. Like a genie," he added.

The Doctor half-grinned, half-grimaced when he thought what the Daleks would think of him if they saw this. The Doctor. The Oncoming Storm, being the imaginary friend of a future-companion while trapped in her life without his TARDIS. How they'd all be laughing at him. If Daleks could laugh, of course.

Rose looked considerably brighter now, but then the Doctor had to dampen it by saying.  
"Are you going to go to sleep now, Rose?"  
"No," she pouted, crossing her arms. "I'm not tired."  
"But Rose, if you don't go to sleep, then you'll be too tired to do anything in the morning."  
"It already is the morning," she pointed out intelligently, "so I want to do something now."  
He sighed.  
"Please, Rose?" he asked. "For me?"  
"Uh-uh," she shook her head. Then she grinned slightly manically. "You gots to do what I wish, Doc. And I wish to have a tea party."  
The Doctor frowned. She wanted to have a tea party? At four in the morning? It sounded like something he'd wake twenty-year-old Rose up for when they were in the TARDIS. He sighed and shook his head.  
"I'm sorry, Rose, but you have to sleep. We can have a tea party when it's light."  
But then she looked up at him again, from where she was still standing next to his leg. Her eyes were wide and innocent and pleading and her lower lip jutted out and her eyebrows had knitted together above her eyes.  
"Alright," he relinquished, sighing again for giving in.

********

The Doctor sat on one half of Rose's bed, with a tiny flowery apron on over his suit and a bonnet, wondering how on Gallifrey he'd agreed to this.

Rose had persuaded him to put them on, saying that it wasn't a tea party without a tea-lady to serve the tea. Apparently she was too young and inexperienced to be a tea-lady, so the Doctor had to do it. She was still wearing her orange butterfly pyjamas and hadn't dressed up at all, which seemed rather unfair to him but of course he didn't say it.

The tea set was laid out in front of him on the bed, separating him from Rose who sat opposite him with a big grin on her face and no trace of tiredness at all. Unlike the Doctor who couldn't remember when he last went to sleep. But he didn't tell Rose that he was tired and tried not to show it either.

Rose grinned at him and said, "You need to go get us tea, Mr Tea-Lady."  
All thoughts of Jackie's kitchen, the pear and the frying-pan came back to him and he blanched.  
"Real tea?" he asked in his normal voice, after utterly refusing to have a posh-lady accent before.  
"Yeah," grinned Rose, "from the tap in the bathroom."  
He frowned for a second before understanding. They were going to have water and pretend it was tea, but she couldn't tell him that because they were playing a game and had to pretend it was tea all the time.  
So he sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that night and got up, holding the play plastic teapot with its flower designs on the side while tiptoeing out of Rose's room and across to the bathroom.  
He filled the teapot up with water while muttering how unfair it was and how stupid he was for being utterly wrapped around a four-year-old future-companion's finger. But how could he say no to that face that she made? He couldn't. That was the problem.

What all the Time Lords would say if they saw him? The Doctor, being utterly controlled by a four-year-old to the point that he agrees to have a tea party with her at four in the morning while wearing an extremely un-manly apron and bonnet. He shook his head to himself.

From behind him, he heard a snort of laughter and he whipped his head up, looking in the mirror to see nothing behind him but a corner of a coat disappearing around a corner. He shook his head again, this time to clear the hallucinations he must be having. Delusional from lack of sleep, he supposed.

The teapot was overflowing with water by this point so he hurriedly turned the tap off and wiped the sides of the teapot with his apron before going back across the hallway and into Rose's room.

He set the teapot down carefully on a plastic saucer on her bed and it wobbled a bit before settling. He then reached across and picked up Rose's teacup, smiling at her as he did so and filled it up with 'tea.' He gave it back to her and filled his own cup. He raised his cup up and moved it towards her's so they could chink the cups together and say, "Cheers," but she just frowned at him in confusion and he hastily set his cup down again, not bothering to explain.

"We need food, Mr Tea-Lady," Rose informed him a minute or so later, after they'd drunk about half of their cups of 'tea.'  
"I'm sorry, Rose, but I'm not going in that kitchen of yours for a while. Have I told you what happened in there?" Rose shook her head at him as she knew he would because of course he hadn't told her yet, but he'd asked anyway.  
"I'll tell you sometime, alright?" he said softly and smiled.  
She nodded and smiled a bit too and went back to her tea.

It felt so weird to him. To be sitting here with a toddler-Rose who was Rose but also wasn't Rose because she wasn't the Rose that he had known. She'd had a life before she'd met him and he'd never really known what her life had been like apart from the fact that her father had died. She wasn't really Rose because the Rose that he had known had been through all of this, being a kid, going to school and having friends and exams and everything, but this Rose hadn't yet. She was so young and so innocent that he wanted to keep her forever locked away from everything else so she couldn't know about all the horrible things in the world and in life but he couldn't because she wasn't his to keep. He heaved a sigh, not knowing if being here was doing him any good or making his pain and grief worse. He'd just have to wait and see.

They were onto their second cup of tea when the Doctor realised something.  
"Oh!" he exclaimed and then bit his lip because he hadn't meant to be that loud and Jackie could have heard him.  
"What is it, Mr Tea-Lady?" asked Rose, still absorbed in their game.  
"I _do_ have some food, Rose. I forgot. Here."  
He reached into his pocket and drew out the forgotten banana which he had snatched from under Jackie's nose. He grinned in triumph at the memory.  
He held out the banana for Rose to see, but instead she snatched it and gobbled it all up in a very un-lady-like manner and all he could do was gape at her. That was _his_banana. He'd risked life and limb for it and it was going to save him from starvation. But now it was gone. All his effort, all that risk and he hadn't even gotten to eat it. But then he saw Rose's innocent and pouting face and all his annoyance was just gone. It was rather sad really, that he couldn't even stay mad at her for more than three seconds before she made _that_ face that he knew oh so well from his past and her future and all his anger would be gone and he'd do whatever she wanted.

They finished their tea and once the Doctor had cleaned everything up, Rose sat on her bed, giggling, while the Doctor struggled to get the bonnet off his head. The apron was lying on the floor already but the bonnet must have been double-knotted under his chin and he couldn't get it off. He groaned in the back of his throat in frustration while just trying to pull it off his head, but he couldn't. It was stuck. So he sighed once more and just got out the sonic screwdriver and buzzed it at the knot and it came apart and he pulled the bonnet off his head.

Rose gazed curiously at the blue glow and the whirring buzz of the sonic screwdriver.  
"What's that?" she asked, getting up silently and moving towards him.  
"It's a…magical wand," he made up, kneeling down and showing her the sonic screwdriver.  
"It can do almost anything," he explained, turning it over in his hand.  
She held out her hand, palm up, towards him and he silently passed her the sonic screwdriver.

But then he heard thunder. Thundering footsteps that could only belong to Jackie Tyler. And before he could do anything, even before he could get the sonic screwdriver back from Rose, Jackie opened the door.

* * *

OH NO

IT'S JACKIE...again

and poor Doctor

You gotta feel sorry for him =D


	7. Pursuit

You people must have thought I was dead or something, I feel like I haven't been on here for months!

Actually, it's only been...actually it's been pretty much exactly a month.

But still, felt like ages.

I'll be updating once or twice a week now that school is finished here in Australia. And I know this chapter isn't 3000 like the last one was, but it's still a pretty awesome chapter.

I was going to write the next chapter today but then I went to see Paranormal Activity instead, so yeah, I will write the next chapter soon though. Sometime.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything, blah blah blah, etc.

_In case you forgot, Jackie just opened the door and discovered the Doctor in Rose's room after they'd had the tea party. _

Chance  
By LilyRose XD

Mixed in time  
Running away  
But running is falling  
And he cannot stay...

**Note: A 'torch' in Australia is what you would call a flashlight. It is not a flaming branch. Even we're not that primitive. **

* * *

VI

Pursuit

The Doctor automatically backpedalled away from Jackie and the frying pan that she was clutching in one hand by the door. He retreated to the window and pushed it open hurriedly while Jackie narrowed her eyes at him and crept towards him like a hunter stalking its prey. He gulped before turning around, hating every second where his back was to her. One throw of that frying pan would leave him bruised for weeks. But even so, he kept his back turned and scrambled through Rose's window headfirst. He landed on his head on the hard, solid concrete and gave himself a second for the pain to recede. He stood up, hissing in a breath when he realised that he'd damaged his ribs again. He heard stampeding footsteps coming towards him so he ran off.

He sprinted across the balcony that ran all around the building, every so often turning his head to catch sight of Jackie getting closer and closer towards him. He ran on, around a few corners before he realised that this was where he'd made his mistake last time. He kept running though and when he saw stairs going down he dashed down them two at a time. He rushed down two more flights of stairs before stopping and running past the apartments on that level and round a corner. He stopped for breath, listening carefully but hearing no more pounding footsteps.

He walked past more apartment doors trying to find a place to hide before finding one door ajar. He pushed it open and stepped inside a few steps, stopping for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He listened but could hear no one.

"Hello?" he called out into the darkness of the hallway. "Is anyone here?"

He received no reply so he went around to each room of the house, making sure it was completely empty before he relaxed slightly and went to close the front door so he could hide here from Jackie until the morning.

As he approached the front door he noticed that it had no locks or bolts on the inside apart from the keyhole, to which there was no key. He reached into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver to sonic the door locked but couldn't find it. He searched his other pockets before remembering what had happened. _She held out her hand, palm up, towards him and he silently passed her the sonic screwdriver. _

He groaned in frustration to the empty hallway. He'd given Rose the sonic screwdriver to look at but hadn't gotten it back from her before Jackie burst in. He needed it back.

What if Jackie took it from Rose and smashed it to little pieces with her frying pan? How could he ever make another one without the TARDIS? How could he ever get out of this time period without it? Thoughts such as these circled around in his head as he sat on the floor in the hallway of the abandoned apartment. He rocked back and forth with his hands clutching his knees, eyes wide and red-rimmed from his lack of sleep. How long had he been here? Not even a whole day yet. But he hadn't slept since before he visited her apartment. And how long ago was that? It must have been weeks, he supposed, for him to feel this tired.  
So he fretted about his poor sonic screwdriver and about Rose and Jackie and her frying pan and wondered how he'd ever get out of here as he rocked back and forth in the hallway, until finally, he fell asleep.

He heard slurred singing. Whether it was in his dream or not, he couldn't tell. But it was getting louder and he frowned in his sleep and put his hands over his ears in an attempt to block it out. But it didn't go away, it just got closer and closer until finally, he knew he couldn't pretend it wasn't there and he opened his eyes blearily.

It seemed the apartment wasn't abandoned after all. For there, framed in the doorway, was a haggard man stumbling and clutching the doorframe as he sang something or rather. The Doctor took more than a few seconds to realise he had to get out of the apartment before the drunken man noticed he was there. Drowsily, he stood up and then flattened himself against the wall and crept silently down the hall, hardly daring to breathe until he passed the man and tiptoed out the door.

He woke up pretty quickly once he was outside due to the fierce wind blowing all around him. He walked across to the stairs and glanced both up and down them before creeping down another few flights. There he stopped again and looked around this level for a place to hide until the morning came in a few hours. Glancing up at the sky, he judged it to be around five am. This meant that he hadn't even slept for half an hour in that drunken man's apartment. He sighed, knowing he'd need to sleep more before trying to come up with a plan to get his sonic screwdriver back.

He noticed a gap between the floor and the underside of the stairs so he crawled inside the space. He didn't even have enough room to stretch out so he just curled into a ball and tried to get to sleep again.

It was probably the scariest awakening he'd ever had in his life. This time, when he woke up, he wasn't drowsy at all, but that was probably because he went straight into shock.  
There, standing over him with an extremely maniacal smile on her face and her frying pan again poised over her head, was Jackie.

He scrambled up and immediately bashed his head on the underside of the stairs and fell down again. At this rate, he'd crack his head open before long with the number of times he'd hit it on something lately. He stared up at Jackie with wide, pleading eyes while trying to get as far away from her as possible while still being trapped underneath the stairs.

"I've called the police and they're on their way now," she told him in a sickly sweet and slightly insane voice. He noticed that one of her eyes was twitching slightly, but the rest of her face seemed frozen in its demoniac expression.

He reached into his pockets for something to distract her with but found nothing useful at all. He adjusted himself into a squatting position which would make it easier for him to spring up and away if she threw the frying pan into the gap he was still hiding in. But she didn't. She just stood there looking like a madwoman. He finally decided he'd have to make a run for it since she wasn't going to do anything unless he came out and he'd be trapped here until the police came to arrest him.

He edged closer to her slightly, still in his crouched position before springing up and out and knocking her down onto her back in the process, which in turn, brought the frying pan down on his head again. He stood up, swaying slightly as the world tilted sickeningly due to the dizziness from the blow to his head. But then he ran off and down the stairs.

It was a horrifying experience. His head was pounding furiously and objects blurred and tilted while others were blocked out by black dots that swam in front of his eyes. He couldn't see the stairs properly, let alone his own feet, so he tripped and stumbled down the concrete stairs all the while knowing that Jackie was most definitely coming after him, though he couldn't hear her because his ears were still ringing and he couldn't bear to turn his head around in case he got even dizzier and fell over, but he just knew, that she was coming after him. And so were the police.

He finally reached the bottom of the stairs and he sprinted away. Away from Jackie and the police and Rose and his sonic screwdriver and the windows that would get him out of here.

He stayed on the Powell Estate though. At least, he thought he did. It was hard to tell each concrete building from the other when they still wouldn't focus properly. He ran through the grassy area through which his past self had walked with Rose while she'd tirelessly questioned him about who he really was. He dashed past more apartments and concrete walls and bricks and graffiti and bins, his head still fuzzy while he tried to work out whether he should keep running away or hide here. Due to the fact that his vision seemed to be getting worse and the ground kept turning vertical from dizziness he reckoned that hiding seemed a better idea.

His ears finally stopped ringing and he heard the wailing sirens which must have been going on for quite a while, for they were rather close now. Too close, he realised. He'd have to hide now or he'd be caught and arrested and he'd never get back to the present time and his TARDIS.

He hid behind some bins, carefully arranging them so he was hidden from all sides with his back against a cold brick wall. He listened to the sirens until they stopped and then he heard the sounds of marching boots and people talking. His vision still hadn't improved so he closed his eyes and took deep breaths hoping that the dizziness would fade as he listened to the sounds of the police searching the Estate for him.

Once or twice, he heard Jackie too, her shrill voice sounding out against the stillness of the dawn that was approaching. He knew that once it was light, it would become much easier for them to find him and he should move, run away from here and come back in a day or so. But he couldn't bring himself to move. He didn't care anymore.

So he just waited, while the policemen marched up and down the estate, barking orders and swinging torches so their light illuminated every corner, but still they didn't find him.

He didn't know how much later it was, when he heard footsteps approaching the bins, it had to have been hours later. But even though he didn't really care if they found him, he still held his breath and didn't move a muscle, not until a little voice sounded out, completely surprising him.

"I brought it back for you," it said.

There was no doubt that it was talking to him, so carefully and slowly he peeked the top of his head over the bins to see Rose standing there in her butterfly pyjamas, holding the sonic screwdriver out in her upturned palm.

Hastily, he pushed one of the bins aside and pulled Rose into his hiding place before replacing the bin and taking the sonic screwdriver from her and placing it in his pocket.

"How did you know where I was, Rose?" he asked gently, while inside he was extremely confused. If Rose could find him that easily, then why hadn't the police found him yet?  
"The magic wand," she replied. "It buzzed and span round until I picked it up and tooks it down the stairs and it showed me the way over here, Doc."  
"Ah," the Doctor replied softly. The sonic screwdriver had found its way back to him like a compass.

"You…you couldn't call me 'Doctor', could you?" he asked her, hesitantly.  
"Nup!" she replied. "Cause you hurted yourself again and can't fix yourself up," she said, staring at his forehead where a bruise must have been developing.  
He sighed softly.  
"Alright then, Rose. You should go back to your room now."  
She scowled at him stubbornly.  
"No! I don't wanna go back to my room. I have to stay here and protect you from hurting yourself again!"  
"Shhh, Rose," he shushed her gently. "If you talk so loudly, the police will come and take me away!"

Her face crumpled up and she clung to his trouser leg.  
"No, Doc. They can't take you away," she muttered into his suit trousers.  
He smiled and patted her hair gently, but then froze. Rose looked up at him with wide eyes.  
"What is it, Doc?" she asked.  
Without taking his eyes away from the policemen running towards him, he reached down and seized one of her tiny hands in his own much larger one.

"Rose?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Run."

* * *

If I do say so myself, I do love that ending.

Next chapter's ending is just as awesome.

Give me reviews and I'll update faster

I know everyone says that but I actually mean it

I'm trying to reach 100 reviews with this story!

Help me get there! =D


	8. Sequestered

Disclaimer: Yeah, I'm sick of this as well. And it's only been 7 chapters. -sigh- I don't own anything cept the stuff that I own - like my Pete the Dragon tail and etc

The Chase  
by LilyRose XD (dedicated to angelthree117)

When running away  
We hold an annoying fault  
For we are unfortunately bound  
To eventually halt...

* * *

VII

Sequestered

The Doctor ran forwards through the petite gap in between the bins, tugging Rose along behind him. The policemen were sprinting towards him and shouting but he ignored them and ran away from them with Rose running as fast as she could beside him but ending up being pretty much dragged along by the Time Lord. The Doctor risked a glance over his shoulder to see that the policemen were catching up so he reached over and hoisted Rose up and onto his shoulders. She clung onto his hair while he held her tiny feet to keep her from falling off. He kept running, though more policemen had appeared behind him and though they were no longer catching up, were still keeping up with him.

He ran around a corner and dodged more policemen who appeared from alleys to either side of him and made to grab him. Due to the growing number of policemen trying to catch him, Rose whimpered a bit before wrapping her arms around his head and screwing up her face into his hair. The Doctor almost stopped fully when she did this as her arms covered his eyes and he couldn't see anything, so quickly and urgently he told her that he couldn't see and she wrapped her arms around his neck instead.

Though not a perfect solution, due to the fact that she was choking him a bit, he concluded that it would do for now as more policemen poured from lanes and alleys and the ones behind him were still shouting and waving their arms about as they ran. He rounded another corner and stopped.

Bright white spotlights were shining right in his eyes and beyond them he could just make out several policemen pointing their guns at him. He scanned either side of him for a way out but just saw more policemen with guns pointed at him on balconies. Distantly he heard the group of policemen behind him catch up and stop and gasp for breath.

All was silent except for the unfit policemen behind him and soon enough their deep and loud breathing stopped too. Unhurriedly he raised his hands into the air, causing Rose to cling tighter to his neck as he was no longer holding her feet. One of them obtained a megaphone and his voice rung through the area.

"Put the child down, sir!"

Slowly, the Doctor reached up and untangled Rose's arms from around his neck and then lifted her up and set her down at his feet. She immediately clung to his leg and hid her face from the policemen.

"Step away from the girl!" the policeman shouted.

The Doctor held up his hands high in the air and told Rose that she had to let go. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and he smiled at her sadly before removing her arms from his calf and pushing her forwards towards the policemen. She stumbled towards them slowly, looking back at him every few seconds until she reached the line of policemen in front of him.

"Now, stay where you are!"

The Doctor did as he was told as several policemen approached him warily with guns still raised. He allowed himself to be handcuffed and led away, all the while wondering how on earth he'd ever get out of this mess.

* * *

The Doctor stood there calmly while Jackie ranted and raved at him, with many hand gestures and finger-proddings. If he could put his chin in his hand he would have, but his arms were bound behind his back by handcuffs. He sighed through his nose as she went on and on and nearly grinned when he caught the sympathetic look he was given from one of the younger policemen who stood behind Jackie.

She had Rose sitting cross-legged at her feet, looking forlorn and the Doctor smiled down at her a bit to show her that he was alright but unfortunately Jackie caught his glance which caused her to scowl at him and continue her rage with renewed enthusiasm.

He'd been tuning her out for quite some time when he was roused from his daydream by her hand connecting with his cheek in a fierce slap.

He should have expected it. She'd been using her frying pan so much lately that he'd assumed that she hadn't perfected her art of slapping which she would use so frequently in her future. But obviously she had and just preferred the frying pan as a torture method as it could be thrown at the victim. The Doctor shuddered and attempted to clutch his head – but couldn't due to the handcuffs – when he thought of the dreaded frying pan.

* * *

The Doctor gazed out the back window of the police car. He squirmed in his seat, trying to get comfortable but finding that it was impossible when his hands were still handcuffed behind his back. He sighed and rested his forehead on the cool glass while staring out at the early morning bustle of London. He remembered with an agonising pang the last time he'd rested his head against glass.

_He stared out of the window at space._

_His forehead was pressed against the glass, and he watched the stars blinking and the planets glowing and the emptiness in front of him. Where the Earth used to be. _

_Behind him were a few stairs, and then the TARDIS, one door half open, looking like a mother waiting for her son to come home from the war, she was waiting for him to come home. But first, she'd let him do what he had to do. He had to remember._

_A few chunks of rock passed by the window, all that remained of the Earth. He remembered how they'd been so caught in events, they'd missed it. They'd missed the death of the Earth. Even though it was what they'd come here to see. He remembered Rose standing and looking out at the rocks floating in space that had come together to form the Earth and telling him. _

"_It's gone…we were too busy saving ourselves, no one saw it go. All those years, all that history and no one was even looking."_

_  
He said goodbye, turned his back and left._

He took a deep shuddering breath and drew back from the car window, wanting to rest his head in his hands but being unable to. So he just let it hang down with his chin on his chest and his hair flopping over his forehead to hide his pained eyes from view of the policemen. He sniffed a bit, swallowed, took more deep breaths and finally regained his composure enough to lift his head up.

The policeman who was driving looked at him via the rear-view mirror.

"I know it's hard to deal with the shock of being arrested but you'll manage," he said with a sad smile.

If only they knew, the Doctor thought. If only they knew.

* * *

The Doctor did not like his cellmate. Usually he'd be able to manage if he was stuck with someone he hated, but all the recent events were catching up to him and taking their toll on his mood and behaviour. So he attempted to ignore her.

She was loud and rude and obnoxious and had been shouting at the policemen in the police station ever since the Doctor arrived and probably before then as well. She whined on and on, complaining about how it wasn't _fair_ and they couldn't treat her like this and she had rights and blah blah blah. The Doctor clenched his teeth to prevent himself from shouting at her to be quiet. He just needed some time to himself to think and come up with a plan to get him out of here and she certainly wasn't helping.

He lay on the bottom bunk of the cold concrete bunk bed that occupied the cell, with only a thin mattress between him and the concrete frame itself. He was attempting to block out his cellmate's shouting so he could think and it was sort of working. He wondered how he'd get out of the police station, then back to the apartment and then how he'd manage to stay out of Jackie's sight and wait around for a Time Window to appear, which could be years from now. He sighed. He'd have to take it one step at a time. First, he had to get out of this cell and the police station.

He looked around furtively. The cell was made up of three concrete walls with the remaining wall being metal bars which looked out into the centre of the police station where there were several policemen at a table drinking coffee. There were only a few other cells in this police station and were all occupied, which was why he had to share. At one end of the wall of vertical bars was a metal door with a keyhole and a tiny window of bars near the top of it. Apart from the door, there was no other way out of the cell.

A keyhole. If there was a keyhole then there was a lock and if there was a lock then he could get out using the sonic screwdriver. He got up off the bunk bed and walked nonchalantly towards the other side of the cell where the door was. His cellmate was still screaming away while shaking the bars of the cell over at the other end and hopefully, _hopefully_, they would ignore this cell completely so the woman couldn't make eye contact with them and scream at them some more. He casually reached into his pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. He pressed the button to turn it on and aimed it at the lock, waiting to hear a click to signify that the door had been unlocked. But there was no click.

He frowned and buzzed it some more, but the lock wouldn't open. He squatted down to peer through the keyhole and try and see the lock but was caught by a policeman. The policeman started towards him after setting down his coffee and ordered the Doctor to step back from the door while he came in.

The policeman drew back several bolts on the other side of the door and then opened it before closing it after himself. He was immediately pounced upon by the screaming lady who held him up by his lapels and shook him while spitting in his face as she raved at him. Two more policemen got up from the table and ran towards the cell, aiming their guns at the lady through the cell bars while the Doctor sat unnoticed on the floor. The woman set the policeman down once she saw the guns being directed at her and stepped back from the policeman who had now fallen to the ground.

After a few moments, the policeman inside the cell seemed to remember what he came here for and got up and started towards the Doctor who was still sitting on the ground.

"What was that device you were trying to unlock the door with, sir?" he asked, frowning sternly down at the Time Lord.

The Doctor saw no use in lying.

"My sonic screwdriver," he answered, holding out the sonic device to the policeman. The policeman snatched it from him and stowed it away in his pocket.

"I'm afraid we'll have to take that from you, sir."

The policeman started back towards the door.

"Oh and just so you know, for future times in cells, we lock the doors with bolts not locks so the locks can't be picked by criminals like you. The keyhole is fake."

The Doctor pouted when the policeman called him a criminal, but allowed him to exit the cell without retaliating.

* * *

The Doctor was back on the bottom bunk, realising he was now even more unable to get himself out of the police station without his sonic screwdriver. Still, better it was confiscated by policemen that smashed to pieces by Jackie and her frying pan. He shuddered.

His cellmate had gone back to her shouting after the other policemen had stowed their guns and gone back to their coffee and she was causing him to develop a pounding headache.

He screwed his eyes shut and held his head with his hands as if that would make the pain go away. The yelling seemed to get louder and he opened his eyes to see the woman standing over him with her hands on her hips in an extremely accurate interpretation of Jackie. He tuned himself in and realised that she was now screaming at him.

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN LISTENING TO ME, ARE YOU?! NO ONE EVER LISTENS! I HAVE RIGHTS AND THEY ARE BEING VIOLATED. WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE, I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!" she turned to face the policemen.

"YOU WHO THINK THAT I'M LESS THAN YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE POLICEMEN! I'LL PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE, I WILL! AND THEN WE'LL SEE WHO LAUGHED AT ME!" She swung around to the Doctor again.

"EVEN YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT MY RIGHTS. WELL, I'LL SHOW YOU!" she crowed before she drew her arm back and then punched him in the face.

* * *

The Doctor woke up on his back. Distantly he noted that his head now ached more than ever before and his ribs felt bruised once again. He sighed, trying to sit up but finding that the world tilted sickeningly like when Jackie had bashed him on the head with the frying pan. Luckily he had nothing to run from this time, as he saw that his yelling cellmate was now in another cell on her own and he had a new occupant sharing the cell with him. This cellmate was staring at the ceiling without blinking on the top bunk, so the Doctor ignored him, having enough of his own problems already.

There was a policeman in the cell too. This one was dressed in a white paramedic outfit though still sported a gun and walkie-talkie at his belt. The paramedic policeman knelt over the Doctor concernedly.

"Are you alright, sir?" he asked.

The Doctor just nodded. But then the policeman reached into a backpack that was lying next to him and drew out a stethoscope and things went downhill very quickly.

"No!" the Doctor blurted, scrambling away from the policeman and his stethoscope. The policeman narrowed his eyes at him but tried to continue his examination.

"It's alright, sir. I won't hurt you. I just need to check your heartbeat and injuries after the knock you had with your cellmate."

The Doctor continued to back up away from the policeman while staring wide-eyed at the stethoscope. He knew he should probably be a bit more subtle in his aversion to the policeman checking his heart but due to the pain he was in, he couldn't bring himself to care. Even so, if they checked his heartbeat and realised he had two hearts then he'd never escape. He'd be locked up somewhere and examined and he'd never get out and never get out of this time and back to his TARDIS.

The policeman raised an eyebrow while still narrowing his eyes, something the Doctor didn't think was humanly possible.

"Are you hiding something under your jacket, sir?" he asked.

"No!" the Doctor replied a bit too quickly.

"That's it! Turn around, sir! And put your hands up on the wall."

So the Doctor was forced to stand with his hands resting on the wall and his head lowered on his chest while the policeman called for another policeman to join him and kept his gun pointed at the Doctor's back.

The second policeman arrived and carried out a full body search on the Doctor while the first policemen held his gun aimed at the Doctor all the while. Once they'd concluded he wasn't hiding anything on his person, they left and locked him back in the cell, taking his suit jacket and coat for inspection.

* * *

It was some time later when the two policemen came back for him. He was sitting on the floor underneath the bunk bed, rocking back and forth and again wondering how he'd gotten himself into all of this and how he'd get himself out. They opened the cell door and motioned for him to come with them. He got up and was lead out of the cell and to a blank white room. He would have made a run for it when they let him out of the cell except that he couldn't leave his sonic screwdriver behind again. Or his coat that was given to him by Janis Joplin. There was also the fact that there was a gun directed at his back again. Otherwise he would have run for it.

In the blank white room, he was asked to sit on a plain chair in front of a wooden desk behind of which there were two more chairs. Even in his current state, he still mentally sighed at the massive cliché of it. On the desk was a small mountain of various objects that he recognised to have come from his coat and suit jacket's pockets.

The second policeman locked the door with a key that he pulled from a massive keychain that hung on his belt, before sitting down beside the paramedic policeman on the opposite side of the desk to the Doctor.

The paramedic policeman peered over the mountain of objects to glare at him.

"What is the meaning of this, sir?" he asked stonily.  
The Doctor just blinked blankly.  
"Is this some kind of joke?" the second policeman put in, also craning his neck to see the Doctor over the hill of objects.  
The Doctor just shook his head at them, while trying to look innocent and also trying to look like he had no idea how so many objects could fit in his small pockets. It wasn't really working.

The second policeman just tutted and then scribbled something down in a notebook. He then obtained an extremely large zip-lock bag and placed all the Doctor's objects on the desk into the bag before he zip-locked it and set it down on the desk again.

The first policeman held up the sonic screwdriver.

"What is this device?" he asked.  
"It's my sonic screwdriver," the Doctor replied for the second time that day.  
"Is it a harmful device?" the second policeman inquired.  
"Nah, completely harmless," said the Doctor, holding out his hand for the sonic screwdriver. The first policeman scowled at him but warily handed it over.  
"So, what does it…do?" asked the second policeman, pen hovering over his notebook.  
The Doctor held the sonic screwdriver up like he was admiring it.  
"It doesn't do anything really," he shrugged. The second policeman frowned and wrote something down.

The Doctor allowed just a smidgeon of a smirk to creep onto his face. He held his thumb poised over the button of the sonic screwdriver.

"But I'll tell you what," he said, still grinning slightly.

The policemen frowned at him and replied simultaneously.

"What?" they asked.

"It is _very_ good at opening doors."

And with that he pressed the button down.

* * *

I'm going to write the next chapter tomorrow but I won't upload until I get a bunch of reviews

So yes, review.


	9. Blunders

Yeah, short chapter, but don't kill me -cowers-

I originally wrote about half this chapter last week but it was horrible so I replanned it and wrote it again much betterly today.

and once again, you get the opportunity to feel sorry for the poor Doctor

When will it end, you think?

I don't know...

Can anyone else believe we're only up to Chapter 8?

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who, don't own LilyRose's awesome limerick either since she wrote it, do own awesome plot, yada yada yada.

Not Very Smart  
By LilyRose XD

Though usually a genius, none to which can compare  
This time the Doctor was too tired to care  
For all of the trouble he caused in that store  
The fire, though brilliant, proves hard to ignore  
So what will happen once the police get there?

* * *

VIII

Blunders

The door to the blank white room flew open with a bang. By the time it had fully opened, the Doctor was up, clutching his sonic screwdriver in one hand and the zip-locked bag of objects that had come from his pockets in the other. He ran through the open door, with the startled policemen on his heels. He ran through the police station, past all the cells and dodged another policeman who was standing there staring at him with a coffee mug in hand. He flew through the double doors out of the station and leaped down the few steps to the pavement.

He shoved the zip-locked bag in one coat pocket and his sonic screwdriver in another while he sprinted along the pavement, turning corners wherever possible and listening out for sounds of the policemen pursuing him. He dashed through a shopping centre, surprising shopping-bag clad individuals as he ran past with his coat flapping out behind him while the police stampeded after him.

After finding the exit to the shopping centre and weaving through cars in the car park, the Doctor raced up a main road, then around corner after corner, not caring where he was going just trying to get as far away from the policemen as possible. He risked a glance behind him to see that they were falling behind and only just rounding the corner behind him as he turned around the next one. He put on a burst of speed, Converses slapping against the pavement as he rushed down street after street, occasionally making his way down a dingy alley as well.

Finally after over half an hour of running, he began to slow down. He held his breath to listen for sounds of sirens and stampeding feet, but there were none. He let out the breath in a huge sigh and continued walking for a while, every so often stopping to listen. But it seemed the police had lost him.

He passed a shopping centre while he was walking down a main road. He stopped, turned to it, thinking. He knew he wouldn't survive at the apartment without supplies to help him, and maybe a banana or two. So making one of his snap decisions which would either turn out to save him later or land him in tremendous trouble, he walked inside.

The Doctor was saved from the heat of the afternoon by the cool air-conditioning that greeted him as he went in. He strolled around the shopping centre looking for a department store and finding one after ten or so minutes of walking. Before entering he realised he didn't have any money, and mindful of the time when Donna Noble – the screaming bride – needed a taxi and shouted at him for not having any proper money, he quickly located an ATM. He strolled up to it nonchalantly, while subtly pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. He glanced around behind him but no one seemed to be paying him much attention so he zapped it quickly and placed a hand over the slot where the money came out hurriedly so the money couldn't go spurting everywhere like last time. The money spewed into his hand and he shoved it into his pocket hastily. He turned back to the department store and strode in.

He was immediately disorientated by the mass amount of people everywhere, the shelves and shelves of appliances, objects, clothes and food. He walked around; trying not to lose himself in all the bright and flashy objects which even though they wouldn't help him against Jackie or help him survive were just screaming at him to be bought. But he attempted to ignore the yearning to buy a donut maker or a glow in the dark tie or a giant packet of jelly babies.

After several hours of wandering around the store, he eventually made some decisions and ended up buying a small tent, a torch, a teddy bear for Rose, edible ball bearings, a new tea party tea set, several jars of marmalade, a wooden shield, lots of canned food including soups, pastas, rice and potatoes, many bunches of bananas and orange juice all of which he placed in his coat pocket.

After the Doctor purchased everything, a voice boomed for a loudspeaker that the store was closing in ten minutes. He glanced around the store to see many people buying things and departing and several guards preparing to close garage-like doors in front of the store. He looked around furtively to check that no one was watching him before disappearing into a rack of clothes. He stayed there for several minutes while the last of the customers departed and more guards patrolled the store to see if there were any shoppers left. A few minutes later someone turned the lights off and then there was the noise of the garage-like doors shutting him in and then there was silence.

The Doctor crept out of the rack of clothes and studied the store for a few minutes to make sure all was quiet and there was no one still here. Satisfied, he turned his attention to the objects in the store itself. He figured it'd be a good idea to lay low here and hide for the night in case the police were still searching the streets for him or maybe even staying at the apartment in case he came back.

He walked over to the section of the store that dealt with outdoor appliances and camping equipment. He came across a large tent that was set up for display complete with fake grass outside it and a display fire pit. He set down his coat and collapsed in tiredness on the fake grass beside the tent. He took off his suit jacket as well and set it down beside his coat before rising again and heading off to the food section.

After selecting some uncooked sausages from the food section he went over to bedding and dragged a dozen or so pillows and blankets back to the tent. He figured while he was hiding out in the store, he may as well enjoy himself.

He set the pillows up all along the floor of the tent and draped blankets over the top. He then set up more pillows standing on their side surrounding one corner for a sort of pillow fort. He backed out of the tent and took the sausages out of his pocket, ripping open the packaging before setting them down beside him and turning to the fire.

It took him longer than expected to get the fire going. For one he had to first get himself a large bucket of water in case things got out of hand and he had to collect more wood from the gardening section of the store. After that though, he managed to light the fire.

He walked around, looking for a grill to put on top of the fire when he realised that he could have just used a barbeque to cook the sausages. He scowled at the silver gleaming barbeques that stood innocently in a row in front of him and instead, sonic screwdrivered a grill off of one of them before taking it back to his fire. He set the sausages down on the grill that he'd placed over the fire and propped up with some bricks. He stood back and admired his handiwork but was slightly disappointed that no one was there to see it.

He sat down beside his makeshift fire and let out a deep sigh. It had been a very long day. Just to think, only slightly more than twelve hours ago he was being handcuffed and led to a police car, and only 24 hours ago he was hiding from Jackie in a towel cupboard. The last time he'd been asleep was at the police station but he'd only ended up getting a few hours rest. So his head began drooping but he struggled to keep himself awake so he could keep an eye on his cooking sausages but it was futile and within a few minutes, he was asleep.

**********

He didn't sleep for long. He soon woke up with a sharp smell in his nose and the air thick around him. His drowsy brain struggled to work out what had happened but after a minute or so of sitting there and blinking blearily, he realised that he was surrounded in smoke. He jumped up, instantly alert and gazed at the scene in front of him. The tent was not yet on fire, but it looked close to it. The fake grass was burning ferociously and his sausages were lying among the wreck of the fire blackened and inedible.

He picked up his coat, trying to beat the flames with it but realising that the fire was too fierce so he just threw his coat on.

He rushed over to the bucket that he'd prepared earlier, only to see that the heat from the fire had begun melting the plastic of the bucket and it was stuck to the grass. He tugged at it but it was stuck. Just then, the smoke alarm above his head began beeping irritatingly, and he looked up at it, frowning at it sternly as if that would make it stop.

He ran to the gardening section and picked up one of the hoses, the employees used to water the plants there and he then sprinted back to his tent. He was only about ten metres away when the hose snapped taut and because he was holding onto it so tightly he fell over when it sprang back slightly. He pulled at it but it had reached its full length and would go no further no matter how hard he heaved. He groaned in frustration and tugged on it again, putting his whole weight on pulling, but all he succeeded in doing was breaking the seal that held the hose onto the tap. As it broke, the hose suddenly wasn't bound to the tap anymore and because he'd had his whole weight on it, he fell over backwards still clutching the hose.

He leaped up and ran back over to gardening, throwing a glance over his shoulder to see that the fire had spread to the tent and was melting the canvas. He found an unopened packet containing another hose and broke it open swiftly before screwing the hose onto the tap.

He rushed back to the tent and thankfully, this hose was longer than the first one and reached the burning tent. He aimed the hose at the tent before realising he hadn't turned the tap on and so no water burst out from the end of the hose. He huffed indignantly and dropped the hose, dashing back to the tap and twisting it as far as it would go before running back to the hose and seeing that it was thrashing wildly with the amount of water pouring out of the end of it. He struggled to get it under control and when he did, he immediately turned it on the blaze.

The Doctor had no idea how long he stood there, face blackened with soot and smoke, eyes wild and hands desperately clutching the hose as it gradually put out all of the fire. Steam hissed and rose up to the ceiling making it hard for him to see but he kept at it until all that was left was the smoking wreckage of the tent and grass and the smoke alarm which was still beeping feebly.

By the time the fire was out, the Doctor was shaking but he still sorted out the ruins by dragging a bin over and throwing all the remains of the tent and grass away along with the sausages, grill and fire. He then picked up a burnt piece of material that didn't belong to the tent. He frowned at it sternly for a few seconds before he realised it was his beloved suit jacket.

It wasn't like he didn't have another dozen or so exactly the same in his wardrobe on the TARDIS, but right now he didn't have the TARDIS, he didn't have anything at all and with all he'd been through in the past day or two, this was really the last stand. He clutched the blackened material to his chest before placing it in his coat pocket, which thankfully hadn't been burned apart from one or two crispy edges due to the fact that he'd been wearing it.

The Doctor picked himself up and stumbled over to the bedding section where he couldn't be bothered making up a bed to sleep in, so instead he just dragged dozens of pillows down onto the floor. He then looked up and caught sight of a sign that said 'Men's Formal Wear.' He trudged over there and drowsily looked through clothes racks for a new pinstriped jacket. It took him over twenty minutes to find one that matched his trousers, and then another minute or so to sonic the pockets into being bigger on the inside. Finally though, he stumbled over to his pile of pillows, collapsed and fell asleep, in plain sight of anyone who would care to stroll down the main aisle of the store in the morning.

* * *

Next chapter will be up just after New Years as I'll be away before then without internet.

Review =D

And thanks to all the reviews from the last chapter, made my week.

Keep it up.


	10. Elude

_For once, I have nothing to say. Maybe I'm just feeling lazy today._

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who or anything else that I may have accidently infringed in this chapter.

Sigh  
By LilyRose XD

'Please-men' attempting  
To catch the man  
Marked as dangerous  
But he has a plan...

* * *

IX

Elude

It was mostly the stamping footsteps on the floor and the yelling that woke the Doctor up in the morning. He turned over on his pillows and tried to block out the sound and go back to sleep but instead the sounds just got louder. He muttered incomprehensibly into a pillow and put his hands over his ears but he could still hear it. He sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms and blinking blearily around.

Even in his drowsy state he could make out the words of the yelling, though their meaning was beyond his sleepy brain at the moment.

"—floor is all burnt through and I don't understand it."  
"Sir, we found this bin with burnt fragments of the tent and the fake grass that's supposed to be on display here."  
"WHAT?!" thundered the first voice, "YOU MEAN THE FIRE WAS DELIBERATE!?"  
"It appears so."  
"I WILL NOT HAVE PEOPLE BURNING DOWN MY STORE. DO YOU HEAR ME?! GO AND FIND THE CULPRITS!"

The second voice must have just nodded because there was no reply.

The Doctor struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. _"Floor is all burnt through… burnt fragments of the tent...find the culprits…"_

And then it clicked. He was in the department store, he'd fallen asleep on this pile of pillows after accidently burning down that tent and having to put out the blaze. And now it was morning and they'd found the wreckage that he'd thrown in one of the store bins.

There was another shout. But this one was much closer. The Doctor jumped up and spun around to see an employee racing towards him. The Doctor was already running. He rushed down the aisle, weaving through clothes racks and shelves, while desperately trying to remember where the exit was. He dashed past startled employees and once, the loud shouting man that he'd heard before, who tried to make a grab for him but missed.

He kept running around the store with more than a few employees chasing him now and possibly the shouting man too. Then suddenly he saw the green glow of an exit sign and he followed it, bursting through a clothes rack and then vaulting a check-out counter before sliding under the partly open garage-like doors out the front.

He kept on through the shopping centre. Early-morning shoppers blurring at the edges of his vision as he sprinted past them. He found a door marked 'stairs' and ran through. He fled down several flights of stairs before emerging in a car park. He dodged cars, with many horns honking at him, and finally made it out to the street.

He glanced over his shoulder while he kept running to see that the employees and the shouting man had stopped when they had reached the road. He was momentarily relieved until he saw the shouting man reach into his pocket and bring out his phone which he rapidly dialled and then held to his ear.

The Doctor turned his neck around again so he was facing forwards and had to rapidly change direction to avoid a pole. His temporary relief was gone, and he realised he was in as much trouble as ever.

He kept going though. He didn't stop running. It didn't matter that he didn't really know where the Powell Estate was, he knew he'd find it eventually. He just had to get there before the police found him.

**************

It was only an hour or so later that he reached it. He ran through the courtyard and up the many flights of stairs to the apartment, listening out for sirens and unfortunately hearing some. He ran down the balcony to the apartment, drawing out his sonic screwdriver, buzzing open the door and launching himself inside.

He leaned back against the orange door, breathing heavily, sonic screwdriver clutched in one hand. It was extremely lucky that Jackie hadn't been in the hallway at the time but now he could hear her blundering about and was sure that she would come and see why the door had slammed seemingly of its own accord.

He looked up the hallway to Rose's door, saw it was too far for him to reach before Jackie got to the hallway. He glanced left and right. The door to his right was Jackie's room, and he knew it would be a mistake to go in there again. So he looked to his left. There was a door there that he'd never gone through before. He rushed to it and turned the handle, but it seemed to be locked. He could hear Jackie's stamping footsteps in the lounge room, rapidly approaching.

He gave the door a quick buzz with the sonic screwdriver and pulled himself inside just as Jackie reached the hallway.

It took the Doctor more than a few seconds to realise that he'd been in this room before. That had seemed such a long time ago. Though it must have only been a few weeks or so.

"_He looked into the first room on his left, the door halfway open, or halfway closed. This was the room he'd been put in after his regeneration, but there was no bed in it now. It was just full of junk. Not junk, he realised, after taking a few steps into the room, but stuff. Pete's old stuff. _

_He doubted that the door had ever been opened before last Christmas when his regeneration had gone wrong and he'd been left to rest in here. And he doubted that it had ever been open since. Maybe Rose had come in here occasionally during her childhood, to sit on the floor amongst the boxes and odd knickknacks and pretend that her father was alive and this was his workroom and he was just out for a cup of tea, but Jackie wouldn't come in here."_

He heard her footsteps plodding down the hallway, so he aimed the sonic screwdriver at Pete's door and locked it again. He heard her open each door in turn, looking for him, until finally Jackie ended up outside Pete's door. But she didn't try to open it. She must have just stood there for a few minutes because he didn't hear her footsteps retreating. So he just waited, silent as a shadow. Maybe it was remembering going into Pete's room a few weeks ago that did it, that made him remember, that allowed him to make the connection between Jackie standing outside this door, and himself standing outside Rose's.

"_He stopped outside her room. Waited. Breathed. His breath seemed so loud to his ears, but not nearly as loud as the thumping of both his hearts as he stood there outside her door. He didn't know why he was hesitating, it just seemed…right to stop and wait and remember."_

It was when he heard her walk away that he realised what he'd realised before. Jackie wouldn't come in here. There were too many memories.

He then realised the implications of that statement. He could stay here. He could be close to Rose and avoid Jackie by staying in Pete's room, where Jackie wouldn't tread. It was like his safe zone in a game of tag.

It was now that he examined the room. It was pretty much the same as it ended up to be when he visited, except the covering of dust was only thin, and there was a double bed in the room as well. He was sure that this used to be a guest bedroom, but when Pete died, Jackie must have moved his stuff in here as well. It was then that there was a knock at the door.

He jumped slightly, before remembering that Jackie didn't come in here, and wouldn't have knocked anyway if she did. Even though he was sure it was Rose, he still unlocked and opened the door cautiously in case Jackie was in the hallway still. But she wasn't. It was just Rose smiling up at him. He hurriedly pulled her inside and closed and locked the door again. Just in case.

As soon as he turned away from the door, she launched herself at him, clinging onto his leg again with desperation. He chuckled softly and lifted her up and swung her around in front of him, grinning. He then sat down on the bed, causing a small cloud of dust to rise from it, before setting Rose down on her feet.

She scrambled up onto the bed, burying herself in his coat, before whispering.

"I thought you were gone forever, Doc."  
He laughed softly again, patting her head.  
"The bad policemen couldn't keep me locked up!" he told her proudly. "I got away."  
She grinned up at him before it suddenly faded and she adopted a fearful look.  
The Doctor leaned down, with a slight concerned frown on his face, as he said.

"What's wrong, Rose?"  
She swallowed. "I think Mummy called the please-men again."  
He frowned some more_. Please-men?_ But then his mouth formed an small 'O'. Policemen. Jackie had called the police on him. Again.

He sighed.

Just as he did so there was a loud knock on the front door. He heard Jackie stomp up the hallway towards it and then the door was opened and the policemen were being ushered inside.

"We'll find him, ma'm, don't you worry."  
"It's not me I'm worried about," replied Jackie. "It's my daughter."

Rose jumped up as she was mentioned. She pushed the Doctor away from the door.

"You gots to hide, Doc," she told him, still pushing him.

He allowed himself to be pushed while he tried to think. He couldn't get out of this room without Jackie or the policemen seeing him. But there was nowhere to hide in this room either. Not even a window to escape out of. But Rose seemed to know what she was doing. She was now crouching on the floor and crawling over the floorboards, obviously looking for something. But he wasn't sure if this 'something' would help him or not. So he had to ask.

"Rose, what are you doing?"  
"There are some floorboards, Doc. In dis room, there are some floorboards that aren't nailed propserly cause Daddy used to hide some of his stuff from Mummy."

The Doctor couldn't help grinning as he imagined Pete trying to hide some of his inventions-in-progress from the prising eyes of Jackie. He kneeled down on the floor next to Rose, still keeping an ear out for the policemen who seemed to be talking to Jackie in the kitchen, and ran his eyes over the floorboards, looking for some un-nailed ones. He found them at once.

There was a small section of them right beside the double bed. He ran his long fingers in the cracks and prised them up quickly, as Jackie and the policemen could start searching at any moment. But he was instantly filled with deep disappointment. There was no way he could fit in the small space below the floor that he'd opened up. It would have been big enough for Rose, easily, but definitely not big enough for a 6 foot Time Lord.

He frowned at Rose questionably, and was given the answer.

"Use the magic wand, Doc," she told him.

He almost smacked himself on the forehead. How could he be so stupid? He had the sonic screwdriver to make the space bigger for him. He hurriedly buzzed it, and the plaster below the floorboards expanded slightly. It still didn't _look_ big enough for him, but he was sure that it was. He then aimed the screwdriver at the door and buzzed it again. The door unlocked with a click.

"Go on, Rose. I'll be fine. Just don't tell your mother that I'm here."

She nodded once before disappearing out the door. He locked the door again before lowering himself into the space below before placing the floorboards that he'd prised up back where they belonged.

The space wasn't that big, he was soon to find out. It was big enough for him, but only just. He couldn't turn around or move at all really. He was just stuck staring at the underside of the floorboards with dust or fragments of plaster occasionally falling onto his face as he disturbed them.

There must have been half a dozen policemen at least. Maybe twice that even. It was hard to tell when they all stampeded up and down the hallway and through the rooms with their black shiny police boots. He soon found out that Jackie had a key to this room. Of course, he'd already known that otherwise it couldn't have been locked in the first place, but he'd been hoping rather that she'd lost it or something. But, alas, no.

She had a key, but she didn't mean that she came in. He could hear no words exchanged outside Pete's door between Jackie and the policemen. But they seemed quieter than before when they came in. Boots not stomping so loudly, voices not so harsh. Maybe they too, had a room like this somewhere, full of nothing but memories. Or maybe it was just their police training that made them seem sympathetic, the Doctor didn't know.

But they searched the room like they searched any other. One of them even stood on the Doctor's loose floorboards once. And all the time they were in the room, he hardly dared to breathe. Cause if they found him, it would be much worse than before, he'd escaped, he'd come back, they could have more charges laid on him, they could take him away somewhere and he'd never get back to his TARDIS, never get back to his grieving and eventually, maybe his travelling. He seemed doomed to exist here. Always.

But they didn't find him. They trudged up and down. They searched. They questioned Jackie. But nothing. They didn't find him. And he was so grateful to Rose. Because without her, he'd have been arrested.

*************

It was later, much later when he emerged. Long after the police had gone, in fact. He didn't come out until Rose came back for him. Because he trusted her now more than ever after what she'd done for him. She didn't even know him that well yet. And he smiled as it reminded him of all the times when they'd been travelling, when she'd helped someone – whether alien or human – when she didn't even know them.

He'd locked the door with the sonic screwdriver again, not that it would do much good if Jackie had the key, and he was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bed while Rose was looking through the boxes of Pete's stuff that filled most of the room.

The Doctor realised that he might be alright now. Or, at least, he was better off than before. He had a room in which to hide, with the hiding place under the floorboards if the police ever came looking for him, he had the supplies that he'd picked up from the department store in his pocket including bananas and marmalade and he was close to Rose if a Time Window appeared. So he just needed to keep out of Jackie's way whenever he left the room and avoid the police in the streets and he'd be alright.

It was then that he remembered that he'd bought a teddy bear for Rose in the department store. He drew it out of his pocket and gave it to her and she grinned at him and hugged him before proudly naming it Jaffy.

He was staring at the wall, patting Rose's hair while she played with Jaffy and smiling distantly when it appeared.

He knew it was a Time Window because it hung in mid air and he could see the SS Madame de Pompadour spaceship on the other side. He wondered suddenly if it had been renamed the SS Rose Marion Tyler. He jumped up, which startled Rose who looked up at him with concern, still clutching Jaffy. He opened his mouth to say goodbye to Rose but saw the Time Window flickering out of the corner of his eye. Hating himself for not saying anything to Rose, but also excited at the prospect of getting his TARDIS and life back, he ran towards the window as it continued to flicker.

But just before he reached it, it gave a final flicker and was gone. And the Doctor ran into the wall behind it.

He ended up lying on his back, looking up the ceiling.

He heard Rose giggling a bit at the sight of him sprawled on the floor. He meant to mock-glare at her for laughing at him but realised how funny he must have looked, running into a wall. And even though he'd lost his chance of getting back for now, he turned to the giggling Rose and had to laugh too.

* * *

_Next chapter up next week_

_...Wait...was that a sort of happy ending? Something is definitely wrong._

_Oh, and since it is._

_Make it last. _

_Thanks to all reviewers, keep it up =D_


	11. Vigilance

Thanks to DramaQueen1133 for some of the ideas in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even Rose's Winne the Pooh lunchbox or the Doctor's Paddington Bear Bandaid.

Firsts  
by LilyRose XD

The first time I jumped  
The first time I fell  
The window of firsts  
Thought to be hell...

TWO YEARS LATER - 1993

Rose - Six Years Old

* * *

X

Vigilance

"I won't go, Mummy! I won't go."  
"Don't be stupid, Rose, honey, you have to."  
"But I don't wanna!"  
"Rose, come on, we're going to be late."  
"Doc wouldn't let you do this to me."  
The Doctor froze. He was hiding behind the couch in the living room, listening in on Rose and Jackie's early morning argument.  
"Doc?" questioned Jackie. "Who's Doc?"  
"No one," Rose lied quickly, horrified at herself for letting that slip.  
"Rose, is Doc that toy bear of yours which you wouldn't tell me where you got?"  
"Um…yeah. That's Doc, Mummy."  
"Right. Now here's your lunch, sweetheart."  
The Doctor peeked over the top of the couch to see Rose standing in her pyjamas with arms crossed in the middle of the living room facing away from Jackie who was holding out a brightly coloured tin lunchbox to Rose.

"Look, Rose. It's Winne the Pooh," Jackie said, motioning to the drawings on the lunchbox. "You like Winnie the Pooh."  
Rose said nothing. Jackie sighed and grabbed Rose's hand with the hand that wasn't holding Rose's lunchbox.  
"Come on, we're going to be late."  
"I'm not going!" Rose shouted at her mother, ripping her hand out of Jackie's grasp.  
"You have to!" Jackie screamed back, momentarily losing her composure.  
Rose looked terrified of her mother as Jackie screamed at her. Jackie sighed and swallowed, placing a grim smile on her face.  
"Come on," was all she said and she grabbed Rose's hand again and led her out of the room, not noticing the Doctor still peering over the side of the couch.

The Doctor fell back into the space between the wall and the back of the couch, leaning against the upholstery and waiting. He'd learned from experience not to come out of his hiding spot yet.

While he waited he listened to the sounds of Jackie bustling around the rest of the house, but he couldn't hear much of Rose and guessed that she was keeping out of her mother's way in her room.

He heard a low deep sigh and a sort of chuckle as well.

He got up on his knees and peeked over the edge of the couch to see the edge of a coat swishing and disappearing around a corner.

Jackie didn't have a coat like that. Neither did Rose.

He listened to Jackie fetching Rose from her room, of them both walking down the hallway, Rose with reluctant heavy steps, and then the front door opened and shut and they were both gone.

He sighed, jumping over the back of the couch and bouncing slightly when he landed on its springy cushions. He jumped up from the couch and rushed over to a window to see the two of them reaching the bottom of the many flights of stairs and walking across the courtyard.

Rose had a small backpack and was now wearing a school uniform.

It clicked in a second and he almost smacked himself for being so slow.

Of course! That was what they were arguing about. Rose didn't want to go to school. It was her first day today. The first of September, 1993.

It had been two years. Two long years here in Rose's childhood. He hadn't seen a Time Window since the day the police had searched the apartment for him and Rose had hidden him under the floorboards in Pete's room.

That hiding spot had come in useful during the times when Jackie thought she heard something and either searched the house for him herself or got the police too. Every time she would insist to them that he was here, he was hiding in her house and one day would try and kidnap her daughter again. They believed her, because the Doctor was sort of still a criminal from all the charges that were laid on him before plus breaking out of jail and burning down some of that department store. But they stopped coming after a while. Said she was wasting their time.

Even without the police searching the apartment every month for him it was still hard. He had to sneak out and buy food for himself at night, and clothes. He had to get his hair cut once in a while and shave as well. And with Jackie prowling around, still on guard, it wasn't easy.

The hardest thing of all was keeping track of Rose. Ever since that Time Window appeared in Pete's room, he knew that one could appear at any time. Whether it was an important time in Rose's life or not. And he had to be ready for them. He had to follow Rose around, which usually meant following Jackie as well. In shopping centres, kindergarten, birthdays and Christmases. And now it would be even harder with Rose at school most of the day, most days. Sure, Jackie wouldn't be there. But he couldn't just sit at a desk in the back of every class and hope that no one would notice him.

He tore his gaze away from the window. If Time Windows _did_ appear in important times of Rose's life, he was almost certain that one would appear today. First day of school and all that. It was an important time in Rose's life, in any child's life.

He rushed down the hallway, sonic screwdriving the door open and then locking it again after he'd shut it behind him. He tore down the stairs, three at a time before emerging at the bottom and running after Jackie and Rose.

He turned a corner just in time to see Jackie reversing her car out of a car park with Rose looking stony and sour in the back seat, clutching her backpack. The Doctor swerved to the side of the courtyard and kept to the shadows as he ran after them.

He did the same in the streets. Keeping up a steady pace with the car due to early morning traffic while he ran in the shadows of buildings or weaved between people on their way to work. He arrived at the public school panting and short of breath as Rose and Jackie were walking inside.

He followed them through double doors, manoeuvring around children who were rushing up the hallway and yelling out to friends. He arrived at a classroom door just as it swung shut from Rose and Jackie entering. He watched through the little window in the door, as Jackie fussed over Rose and gave her a hug goodbye and left Rose looking forlorn in the middle of the classroom.

He flung himself out of the way as Jackie marched towards the door. She pushed open the door with such a force that it hit the Doctor who was hiding on the other side. All his breath was let out in a whoosh, but Jackie didn't see or hear him, and she just rushed away.

The Doctor heard a bell ring above his head and consequently looked up at the ceiling for its source. He glanced around and saw all the kids rushing into their classrooms, and realised that he couldn't stay in this hallway watching Rose through the little window in the door all day and waiting for a Time Window to appear. He marched back down the hallway and out of the double doors, circling around the side of the building and looking through each set of windows until he found Rose's classroom. He looked in to see Rose sitting at a desk with her chin on her hand and staring off into the distance glumly.

The Doctor looked around at the rest of the classroom, but there weren't many kids in it yet, so he knocked on the glass once. Rose looked up with a start, saw the Doctor and grinned brightly.

The Doctor grinned back and waved before settling down in the bushes below the window with his back against the cold bricks of the building.

He peered over the bottom edge of the window from time to time to check that Rose was alright, keeping the window unlocked – thanks to the sonic screwdriver – in case he saw a Time Window in the classroom. But he didn't. Whenever Rose started looking gloomy again, he'd smile at her, and she'd grin back before refocusing her attention on her first day of school work in grade one.

Suddenly, the bell rang again for lunch and the Doctor jumped, causing the bushes around him to rustle. He got up, stretching and waited for Rose to come outside.

Rose appeared in the double doors with some apprehensive six-year-olds who might or might not have been her new friends. They were clutching their lunchboxes and glancing around the big playground for somewhere to sit out of the way of the older kids. The Doctor watched as they crossed the playground quickly before sitting down in the shade of a tree and opening their lunchboxes.

The Doctor watched from his position in the bushes as Rose opened her Winne the Pooh lunchbox before making a face at its contents and pushing it away from her. He frowned. Rose couldn't _not_ have lunch. Especially on her first day.

He watched on as she sat there with the other 6 year olds and stared at their lunches hungrily while ignoring her own. He wanted to go up there and give her some food but judged that to not be a good idea at the moment as a teacher was just passing them.

* * *

He watched uneasily as Rose hung upside-down from the monkey bars, grinning at the other kids she was with. He knew he shouldn't interfere with anything, but he couldn't help wanting too. What if Rose fell off? What if she seriously injured herself?

He shook his head to disperse these thoughts. Rose would get in more trouble if he interfered. If he fetched her down from the monkey bars or from any other dangerous place she happened to be. Then she'd always rely on him for keeping her safe. And that might change the way she acted when he first met her properly when he blew up her job. No, he had to try not to interfere if he could help it. But then Rose was slipping off the monkey bars and falling and he was running towards her anyway.

No teacher had noticed Rose fall, but that was probably due to the fact that she wasn't crying. They probably registered that someone was hurt when they heard wailing and sobbing. But Rose just sat there on the tanbark below the monkey bars, frowning at the graze on her knee. The other kids backed away as the Doctor approached and watched silently. Rose grinned when she saw him and reached her arms out for a hug.

"Doc!" she exclaimed happily.  
"Rose!" he replied, grinning and crouching down in front of her to sort out her knee.  
"I'm going to fix up your knee, okay, Rose?"  
"It's fine, Doc. It doesn't hurt," she said.  
He smiled, it was just like when years later, Rose would accidently cut herself on the TARDIS grating or something, and he'd want to patch it up for her, against her insistence that she was fine.

He reached into his pocket and after much rummaging brought out a tissue which he used to wipe away the small amount of blood on her knee and the little pieces of tanbark clinging to the graze. He then searched his pockets some more before drawing out a Paddington Bear band-aid. He tore away the paper on the bandaid and stuck it to Rose's knee.  
"There!" he said, grinning while he remembered a conversation he'd had with Rose slightly more than two years ago.

"_I'm the Doctor. And I was running away from the drago— I mean your mother, and then I fell through your window and hurt my head."  
She frowned at him and said, "Doctors don't hurt themselves."  
"Why not?" he asked.  
"Cause they're doctors. They make peoples better. They don't hurt themselves. Ever."  
"Well, this one does. But it wasn't my fault. Your mother hurt me, really."  
This statement caused Rose to glare at him, and even though she was four and not twenty, the Doctor still thought that that glare could stop Daleks in their tracks.  
"No one says bad things about my Mum," she told him sternly.  
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it," he lied.  
"Better," she said, grinning a bit now.  
"I'm Rose," she told him unnecessarily. "What's your name?"  
"I'm the Doctor."  
She frowned at him again.  
"No," she said firmly.  
The Doctor frowned too. No? No one had ever said 'No' when he told them his name, usually it was 'Doctor who?' or something like that. But no one had ever said 'No' to him before._

"_What do you mean, 'No'?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and warm.  
"You're not's a doctor if you can't fix yourself."  
"But it's my name!" he protested.  
She just shook his head at him while glaring. It was quite a sight matched with the teddy bear and orange butterfly pyjamas.  
He felt like throwing up his hands, but he didn't.  
"Until you can proves you're a doctor, I'm calling you Doc."  
"But-" he objected.  
"NO!" she interrupted, still glaring.  
The Doctor sighed. Same old Rose._

"Am I a doctor now, Rose?" he asked.  
She grinned at him before shaking her head.  
"No?" he questioned in disbelief.  
"Nup! You have to be able to fix _yourself_. You've only fixed me. You're half a doctor, Doc."  
He sighed.

***************

"Are you going to eat your lunch, Rose?" he asked, after being led over to the tree she was sitting under before. All the other kids that had been sitting there were gone. And most of the teachers on yard duty were sitting together on a bench eating their own lunches.  
Rose made the same face she'd made before when opening her lunchbox.  
"My lunch is icky , Doc."  
"Icky?"  
She nodded. "Icky."  
The Doctor opened her Winnie the Pooh lunchbox to see that her lunch was indeed, as she put it, _icky._ There were two sandwiches with brown bread with salad and plastic cheese inside, an apple, and a slice of carrot cake. He raised an eyebrow at her lunch. Jackie must be going through a 'healthy' phase. But still, how could she possibly think that Rose would eat this?  
He thought for a moment and then frowned at Rose questionably.  
"I understand about the sandwiches and the carrot cake," holding up the food as he spoke, "but why won't you eat the apple? You like apples, don't you?"  
"Yeah I like apples," she picked up the apple in question and threw it as far as she could away from her across the playground. "But I don't eat them anymore. I haven't eaten them for two years. Because Mummy says that 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away,' and even though you're not fully a doctor yet, I don't eat them in case they make you go away, Doc."  
The Doctor had to smile. He had to. He smiled and smiled at Rose before drawing her in for a hug.  
"Thanks, Rose," he said softly. "But you can eat apples. Apples won't keep me away."

The Doctor searched one of his coat pockets.  
"Well then…" he said to Rose, drawing out a banana as he spoke, "I have this for your lunch, Rose."  
Rose made to grab at the yellow fruit but he shook his head.  
"We can't eat the banana yet. Though bananas are a rich source of potassium, you need some other food as well."  
He found a loaf of bread and a jar of marmalade, and miraculously, a knife in his pocket as well. So he made both Rose and himself a marmalade sandwich. He tried to find a second banana for himself but it seemed he only had one left.

He gave it to Rose saying, "I've got more under the floorboards," which wasn't true. He kept all his supplies in his pockets in case the police came after him again and he had to run away immediately. But Rose believed him. And he smiled as she ate it while making a mental note to himself to buy more bananas soon.

* * *

Not too long after, the bell rang for the end of lunch. The Doctor got up and picked Rose up for a hug before setting her down and brushing off the bread crumbs on her new school uniform.

He only got a chance to say, "Have a good afternoon, Rose," before she was off running with her lunchbox clutched in one hand, desperate not to be late for her afternoon classes.

He threw away the contents of Rose's lunchbox but slipped the apple into his pocket before going back to the clump of bushes in front of Rose's classroom window and sitting down.

He waited until the bell rang again to signal the end of the day before getting up. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned before going back over to the main doors for Rose. He saw Jackie there and quickly hid behind some other early parents eagerly waiting for their children to appear. The double doors were flung open and the kids poured out in numbers.

The Doctor thought he saw a twelve-year-old Mickey Smith going past but he didn't bother checking if it really was him because Rose and the other grade one kids had appeared.

The Doctor walked slowly behind Rose and Jackie back towards their car, and waited in the shadow of a tree as they got into it and began to drive away, but they might as well have been walking. The after-school traffic was horrendous as it was the first of September. So the Doctor was easily able to walk beside the car in the crowds on the pavements.

Rose had her car window open and she leaned out of her back seat slightly to look at all the passing people.

Jackie glanced at Rose in the rear-vision mirror.

"Did you have a good day at school, Rose?" she asked, keeping one eye on her daughter and one on the road.

Rose was about to say that she didn't because school was utterly boring and confusing, but then she saw the Doctor in the crowd of people and the memories of their lunchtime flooded through her.

The Doctor grinned at her and waved.

"Yeah, I had a good day."

* * *

Okay, last chapter before I go away. So no chapter for a few weeks. Sorry.

Review =D


	12. Skirmish

It's February the 7th today. And so this chapter is dedicated to the fire-fighters of the Black Saturday Bushfires last year. And all the survivors, rescuers and SES and everyone who donated money or time for the recovery.

For anyone who was confused, Chapter 10 (the last chapter – prologue doesn't count as a chapter) is two years _after_ Chapter 9. So this time I'm writing it there so everyone's clear. And I'll go back and say that in Chapter 10. Anyone who was wondering, I am a girl, though not much of one. Ha ha. Anyway, these chapters may not seem that important, but they are. I didn't want to just skip over them and anyway Chapter…13 will be so awesome that you won't DARE to complain. I WANT TO WRITE CHAPTER 14 NOW. But I have to write 12 and 13 first. I'm going to write 12 now. But won't update it until next weekend unless I am buried in reviews. Cause next weekend I might not be writing a chapter, so I wanted to make sure you wouldn't miss your weekly update. But I'm happy to upload it whenever if I'm requested to.

Chameleon Circuit are awesome. They're a Doctor Who band. =D

Think  
By LilyRose XD

Connecting lines  
Instead of dots  
And though this is smart  
There are alternate plots...

**100th Reviewer will get something special**

But if there are 98 reviews, then don't NOT review even if you want to because you want to be the 100th. If you are the 99th reviewer, I'll probably extend the specialness to you for being so awesome.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

**2 YEARS LATER – 1995**

**Rose - 8 Years Old**

_Italics _ - Flashbacks

XI

Skirmish

"What do ya reckon, Jackie, should I switch to a side fringe or keep it straight?"  
"Well, Bev, love, how about we experiment with both and see what works?"

The Doctor tried not to sigh audibly from his spot behind the couch. He seemed to practically _live_ behind it now. He wouldn't be stuck behind it at all if he hadn't been lounging around in the living room when Jackie and her friend Bev came home from their shopping spree earlier. Now Jackie was actually doing her job for once, which was hairdressing, but the Doctor didn't think she'd ask Bev to cough up for her haircut anyway so he half wondered why she'd bother cutting Bev's hair at all.

The Doctor attempted to shift his leg, which was falling asleep, without making a sound. He managed to, but that didn't stop him from accidently hitting his foot on the wooden base of the couch as he did so, causing him to bite his lip to keep from muttering a Gallifreyian curse.

He listened to Jackie's scissors going _snip snip snip_ and the occasional page turning of Bev's magazine and rapidly became bored. He was half-tempted to rummage in his suit pockets for a gadget to tinker with but knew that would be counterproductive to his situation and would probably result in his finding and capture by Jackie.

So instead, he glanced up at the clock on the wall and tried not to sigh again. The fake Christmas tree that Jackie had plonked in a corner of the living room next to the couch not a week before was blocking his view of the clock. He didn't even need to see the calendar to know it was only the end of November and it was far too early for a Christmas tree to go up. But he'd guessed that the Christmas tree had been put up for Rose, who absolutely adored Christmas, and so he couldn't complain if it made Rose happy.

He could have checked the time on one of his many watches, but knew they were all at the bottom of his left coat pocket, and he wasn't wearing his coat. It was hidden underneath the floorboards in Pete's room lest Jackie unlocked the door and entered the room, unlikely as that may have seemed.

The Doctor reached out a hand from behind the couch to push on the bottom of the fake tree so it didn't obstruct his view of the clock, hoping that Bev was too absorbed in her magazine and Jackie in her haircutting to notice a strange hand and pinstriped suit sleeve appearing and moving the tree. He gently tugged the base of the fake tree away from the wall that he was squished against because of the couch. It moved across the carpet almost silently, and the Doctor managed to glimpse the top right hand corner of the clock, but not enough to see the hands of it. But then he accidently pushed the fake tree too hard and it toppled on one leg of its stand and then fell over with a small crash.

He heard another _snip_ and then Jackie apologising for cutting too much off a strand saying that the tree had distracted her.

Jackie stomped over to the fake tree, only to see the Doctor's hand sliding back behind the couch. The Doctor could only too well imagine the narrowing her eyes and placing of her hands on her hips, one hand clutching scissors and the other, a comb.

"What's it, Jackie?" the Doctor heard Bev ask Jackie.

The Doctor gulped at the silence, preparing to leap out from behind the couch and possibly knock Jackie down in the process. But then Jackie was moving away from the couch, leaving the tree upended and he breathed a sigh of relief. So his efforts wouldn't be completely wasted, he glanced up at the clock. It was 3:30. Rose would be home from school soon. And this wasn't the way the Doctor wanted to greet her.

He heard Jackie stomp around some more and then there was the clatter of her dropping her scissors and comb onto a table, and then there were three beeping noises followed by a tsch from Jackie. He waited, still crouched and ready to spring, wondering what Jackie was doing. Then Jackie started speaking, but she wasn't speaking to Bev or to him.

"Yes, hello, this is Jackie Tyler…yes that's right, _the_ Jackie Tyler. I'm calling for the usual reason…yes, again…no I'm not mistaken this time…what's that?...well yes I know that wasn't actually _him _that time, but I'm sure of it this time…what do you mean I'm not allowed to use the frying pan?...alright then, thank you, bye, bye."

The Doctor didn't have to be a Time Lord genius to know what had just happened. And thought it was rather pointless that when Bev asked who Jackie was calling, Jackie just said, "you'll see."

Did she think he was a complete idiot? He wasn't going to wait around for the police to come and arrest him again.

Jackie seemed to be continuing Bev's haircut judging by the resumption of the _snip snip snip_ noises. Probably thinking that the Doctor was too scared to come out when she had scissors with her. But he knew at least that the police disapproved of her using her frying pan on him, for which he was grateful.

He waited for a few seconds, legs still crouched ready to spring and breath shallow and almost completely silent.

Then he exploded out from behind the couch, knocking it over in the process, almost tripped over the fallen Christmas tree and was sprinting out the doorway when Jackie's scissors came flying at his head, narrowly missed by a hairs breadth and lodged into the wall.

He dashed down the hall and was out the door by the time Jackie had retrieved her scissors, and he was flying down the stairs when he heard the front door to the apartment slam. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he hid himself behind the same bins he'd concealed himself behind four years ago when hiding from the police.

He peeped over the top of one bin to see Jackie sprinting through the door at the bottom of the stairs and running down the courtyard in the direction that she thought he'd gone.

He was still peering over the top of the bin and gasping for air when he turned to his left and yelped, backpedalling and tripping over his own feet. He lay sprawled on the concrete, mouth open and gaping at Captain Jack Harkness who was staring at him.

"Jack," the Doctor blurted without thinking.  
Jack's eyes narrowed.  
"How do you know who I am?" he asked coldly.  
"Jack, it's…oh."

Realisation dawned on the Doctor. This Jack hadn't met him his 10th reincarnation yet, either that or he got _really_ drunk yesterday. This was the post-9th Doctor, pre-10th Doctor version of Jack. The Doctor remembered vividly, like it was only a few weeks ago and not four years, the conversation he'd had with Jack on Utopia.

"_Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life, but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."  
"Do you think she could change me back?__"  
" __I took the power out of her. She's gone, Jack. She's not just living on a parallel world. She's trapped there. The walls have closed.__ "  
"I'm sorry."  
"Yeah."  
"I __went back to her estate in the Nineties, just once or twice, watched her growing up. Never said hello, timelines and all that.__ " _

He realised with a pang that Jack was obeying the laws of Time while he – A Time Lord – was not. He'd meddled in timelines. He'd unknowingly changed her life by staying in contact with her. By living this dangerous existence. _And_, he thought, seeing Rose arguing and fighting fiercely with older children that looked incredibly like bullies, _he was about to meddle again. _

Both he and Jack jumped up and blurted, "Rose!" at the same instant. Jack turned to him with a frown but then they both strode out from behind the bins, and ran towards the scene.

Rose was taking on five or six kids who looked at least ten or eleven, holding her own quite well as she punched and scratched and kicked at them, screaming wildly as she did so. As they approached, the Doctor and Jack could hear some of the kids who weren't being attacked by Rose taunting her about her life living on a council estate and how her mother couldn't even support her properly.

Rose slammed one of those kids into the ground and shouted in their face.

"DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MY MOTHER LIKE THAT, YOU SCUM!" and then she was bashing their head into the ground and spitting in their face.

The Doctor was half-tempted to let Rose continue, especially because then he wouldn't be meddling in events, but didn't want to see Rose get hurt so he yelled:

"HEY!"

The bullies turned and saw the Doctor and Jack running towards them with very grim expressions on their faces and so they scattered and were all out of sight in ten seconds.

Rose just stood there, her hair messed up and her uniform dirty with a few tears in it, breathing hard.

The Doctor reached her first, scooped her up off the ground, and hugged her fiercely. Rose sniffed and muttered, "No one says things about my mum," into his coat.  
Again the Doctor found himself remembering something.

"_You upset my mum."  
"Right. Big absorbing alien over there, and you're having a go at me?"  
"No one upsets my mum."_

The Doctor chuckled a little bit to himself and then still holding Rose, leaving Jack to pick up her school bag, walked back over to the stairs, ignoring the police sirens he could hear in the distance.

The Doctor trudged up the stairs, with Jack following, confused as to who the Doctor was and what he was doing. They reached the apartment and the Doctor entered without sparing a thought to Bev who was now sitting on the couch with half her hair cut still reading the same magazine and drinking a cup of tea. Upon seeing the Doctor, she shrieked:

"YOU! JACKIE HE'S HERE. HE'S HERE, JACKIE!"

But the Doctor ignored her and set Rose down in an armchair away from Bev. Jack was standing awkwardly in the living room doorway, with Rose's schoolbag at his feet. Bev finally noticed him standing there.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE! YOU CAN GET OUT RIGHT NOW – BOTH OF YOU," she calmed down a bit. "Jackie has called the police and they are on their way. So you can both get out _right now_ and wait for them to come and pick you up."

The Doctor pointed out that they had stopped some bullies from picking on Rose and brought her up here but Bev was having none of it and mid-shouting rant, she noticed Jackie's handy frying pan, and brandished it at them. The Doctor gave Rose one last hug and then both he and Jack were gone in an instant.

Jack was all business once they'd settled in their spot on the roof of the Powell Estate.  
"Who are you? How do you know Rose?"  
The Doctor watched as the police trudged up and down the courtyard below him, never thinking to look up.  
"I'm her friend. In the future."  
Jack was straight to the point.  
"Did you travel with the Doctor?"  
The Doctor paused, knowing it was best that Jack didn't know who he was as it was stuff up their trip to Utopia. Because if Jack wasn't looking for him, then he would never have found him in Cardiff, and would have never grabbed hold of the TARDIS and made the TARDIS travel to the end of the universe where they met the Master…

Maybe he should tell him, because then the Master wouldn't have died…

"…Yeah. I travelled with the Doctor and Rose," he forced himself to lie, not letting his grieving for the only other Time Lord who had been alive to get in the way of timelines.

Jack frowned. "He never mentioned you. You must have come after me."

The Doctor nodded. "Must have, yeah."

There was a silence for a while. Then Jack got up, making his coat swish and brushed off some imaginary dust.

_He got up on his knees and peeked over the edge of the couch to see the edge of a coat swishing and disappearing around a corner. _

"I'd better go," Jack motioned to the police who were now climbing up the many flights of stairs to explore the upper levels of the apartment building, getting closer to where they were sitting on the roof. He grinned. "Don't want _them_ finding me here."

The Doctor just nodded blankly while staring at Jack's coat. Jack fiddled with the controls on his Vortex Manipulator strapped to his left wrist. The Doctor turned his attention to the Vortex Manipulator, which allowed Jack to travel through time. _Through time._

_From behind him, he heard a snort of laughter and he whipped his head up, looking in the mirror to see nothing behind him but a corner of a coat disappearing around a corner._

"I'll see you then," Jack said, saluting with his right hand.

Jack was just about to press the button on his Vortex Manipulator when the Doctor jumped up.

"Wait! It was you all along wasn't it. It's you that's been in Rose's apartment, you've been using the Vortex Manipulator to get yourself there and you that's been laughing at me with…with THAT COAT!" the Doctor gestured to Jack's swishing coat.

The Doctor stared at him and muttered, "It's you. It's you. It's you. It's you."

Jack just looked confused. He pressed the button on his Vortex Manipulator and disappeared in a blinding flash of light. All that was left was one word that echoed around the Doctor's skull.

"No."

* * *

Cazzette - I was always planning to put Jack in this chapter but found it awesome that you talked about it in your review the chapter before this one. So well done =D

REVIEW FOR NEXT CHAPTER

As I have already written it for once.


	13. Vex

This is my new favourite chapter out of them all =D

And I thought since last chapter didn't have a lot of Rose, that we should have a lot of Rose in this one, but unfortunately, that means not much Doctor =(

Chapter is dedicated to **angelthree117** as she remembered about the Doctor knowing about Rose getting a red bicycle. It wasn't originally in the chapter but I've added it in.

Oh and major major thanks to Owl-Eats-Waffles for all their reviews (even for old chapters) and major thanks to everyone else who reviews/reads/favs etc...

Anyone who's seen the Comic Relief with Catherine Tate and David Tennant should recognise the quote. =D

First Day  
by LilyRose XD (I'm randomly putting in the whole poem because I can)

We've all been there  
The first day of hell  
Being good little students  
It never goes well.

Teachers are boring  
Kids are just mean  
You're the odd one out  
And don't want to be seen.

But even when faced  
With a test...I mean quiz  
First days are okay  
If you have a Doctor, that is.

************100th Reviewer will get something special************

But if there are 98 reviews, then don't NOT review even if you want to because you want to be the 100th. If you are the 99th reviewer, I'll probably extend the specialness to you for being so awesome.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Comic Relief.

* * *

**4 YEARS LATER - 1999**

**Rose - 12 Years Old**

_Italics _ - Flashbacks

XII

Vex

Rose straightened her second-hand school skirt, brushing off imaginary lint and then tucked a few wayward strands of hair behind her ears with her free hand. Her other hand was clutching one of the straps of her school backpack. She walked forwards towards the double doors, twisting her head as she did so to catch one last glimpse of the Doctor who was standing at the school gate. Propped up against the fence next to him was the red bicycle she'd gotten for Christmas. He gave her a smile and a wave. She smiled back and waved goodbye. Then she walked into the door. She heard a few sniggers behind her from other kids but ignored them, and managed to grasp the door handle, open it and get herself inside. The Doctor frowned worriedly from the gate as she disappeared, matching the expressions of a few doting parents scattered around the front of the school, watching concernedly as their kids entered high school for the first time.

The Doctor threw a glance at the bicycle, remembering with an anguished pang his ninth incarnation talking about it with Rose so long ago.

"_Look at you, beaming like you're Father Christmas."  
"Who says I'm not? Red bicycle when you were twelve."_

The Doctor turned away from the school, and tried to walk back to the Powell Estate. He _tried._ But every few steps he kept looking back, his face still maintaining its anxious expression. Of course, he knew he was being absolutely ridiculous. Rose would be fine, Rose would cope. She wasn't a little kid anymore after all. But even so, he couldn't help making his steps away from her even more hesitant, until he'd stopped completely. Civilians on their way to work rushed around him like he was a pole set in the middle of the footpath.

The Doctor chewed his lip, knowing that his attachment to Rose was getting to an unreasonable level. Rose had her own life. And if he didn't allow her to live her life properly, then he'd mess up the timelines and she might never meet him. He sighed. Knowing there was no way his brain could convince him to stay away. So he turned back and began walking towards the school again.

*********

Rose was battling the tide of kids that stretched the whole length of the hallway. Even if she had a map to the school, she wouldn't have been able to use it as there wasn't space to swing a cat. So she just allowed herself to be led along by the crowd until her name jumped out at her.

**TYLER Rose 7NR**

It was a white label stuck on a murky green locker. She battled her way across the wide hallway to the locker and managed to get her heavy bag off her back. She began to stow her second-hand textbooks and folders along with her new laptop on the top shelf and then she squished her empty bag onto the bottom shelf. It was when she closed her locker that she realised she didn't have a lock. She looked around, only to see an A4 sheet of paper taped to the wall that read:

**Locks £8 – See Reception**

She doubted that she had £8 with her. She opened her locker again and grabbed her purse. She sighed. She only had £2. She chewed on her bottom lip. She knew that if she left her locker with no lock and her brand new expensive laptop was stolen, her mother would kill her. They'd been saving up for that laptop for a long time. Rose opted that she'd just have to carry it around with her for the first day. She sighed again and picked it up.

***********

"Tyler, Rose?"  
"Here," Rose called, a little too loudly. There were a few snickers. She glared in their general direction. The maths teacher – Ms Phillips – completed the roll and then stood up at the front of the class.

"Now, to start you all off on your first day, I thought we'd have a little test…err…_quiz_ to see what you're up to in mathematics," a number of students paled. "So will you all get out your maths books and turn to page 3, where you will find a revision test….I mean quiz."

Rose dug out her second-hand maths book and turned it to page 3 as she was instructed, only to find all the answers pencilled in by the previous owner. She began working out the answers anyway in her exercise book, instead of writing in the answers already in the textbook.

Ms Phillips was prowling around the classroom when she stopped beside Rose.

"What's this?" she asked picking up the maths textbook. "Have you been writing in the textbook, Rose? You should know that it's against the school rules to write in textbooks as they will be needed for other students once you are finished with them at the end of the year."  
"Ms Phillips, I didn't write in the textbook. It was the previous owner. The book is second-hand."

There were more sniggers at this. Rose gnashed her teeth, remembering how the Doctor had told her not to get into fights with other kids because of what they said about living on a council estate and not being able to afford brand new books and uniform. She stayed silent as Ms Phillips went on.

"Ah, you're _that_ Tyler. Well then, I should have you know, Rose, that you will not be exempt in any way from the school rules just because of your…background. We expect all students to be able to afford the necessary books and maintain a _neat_ appearance," she cast an eye over Rose's second-hand slightly stained uniform, "and if you are not able to do so, I suggest you find another school."

Rose took a deep breath through her nose, clenching her teeth together to keep herself from shouting at the teacher or most of the students who were smirking at her and holding up their new, shiny maths textbooks. Her hands curled into fists under the table and she was itching to jump up and punch Ms Phillips or her classmates but she just swallowed and sighed through her nose.

"Yes, Ms Phillips."

**********

Rose couldn't believe the ability that some Year 7s had to make friends. It was only lunchtime on the first day and already they were exchanging phone numbers and email addresses and talking about what they should do on the weekend. Rose corrected herself, she couldn't believe the ability that some Year 7 _girls_ had to make friends.

Among one of the groups of Year 7s seated in the cafeteria were some of the girls who'd laughed at her in maths, Rose skirted around them, keeping her eyes on the opposite side of the cafeteria.

Once she was past them she looked around the rest of the cafeteria, but there was no one she wanted to or was socially allowed to sit with. So she walked over to the exit of the cafeteria with her paper bag lunch watching enviously as one of the girls from _that_ group went over to the food counter and bought a box of greasy, delicious looking chips. Rose stopped to watch. When the girl handed over some money, the cafeteria lady looked through it and Rose heard her say.

"You've given me too much, love, it's only £3. You've given me £7."

Rose heard the girl give a tinkling laugh.

"I'm sorry, my mistake." Then the cafeteria lady gave the girl her fish and chips and spare money and the girl walked back over to her table.

Rose turned on her heel, and left the cafeteria.

She saw several inviting looking benches to sit on and eat her lunch but knew that sitting on her own would get her labelled as a loner for the rest of her school days. So instead she walked around the school, pretending to be fascinated with its sprawling grounds and towering buildings.

She was on her third trip around the school when she saw the Doctor sitting on one of the benches and smiling at her. Rose glanced around her, there were no Year 7s around. She quickly ran over to the Doctor with her empty paper bag scrunched in one hand and her laptop bag hanging off her shoulder and flung herself down on the bench, reaching over to give him a hug. With the arm that wasn't hugging Rose, the Doctor reached into his pocket and drew out an oily box.

"Chips?"

*********

Rose had suffered through another class of sneers and smirks and was striding along the hallway with her many books clutched in her arms and her laptop bag bashing against her thigh with every second step she took on the way to her next class. Suddenly her diary and pencil-case which had been sitting on top of her textbook mountain slid off a folder and fell to the ground as she went around a corner. She sighed, not wanting to put down the rest of her books so she could retrieve her diary and pencil-case, but she didn't have too.

Just then, someone reached down and plucked them off the floor for her. She'd expected it to be some random nice kid she'd never met before like in the movies, but it was the Doctor. He dropped her pencil-case and diary on top of her pile before reaching over and taking the whole book pile from her and grinning. Rose just blinked, he'd practically appeared out of nowhere. She didn't question him though and was grateful to not be holding so many books anymore. She led the way down the hallway, glad to be empty handed, until she reached the right classroom where she stopped outside and waited for the Doctor to catch up.

"See you soon, Rose," he said while handing over her books.

She frowned in question. But he didn't answer. He just sauntered off down the hallway with a glint in his eye and a grin on his face.

*******

Rose wished the teacher would hurry up. She'd made it through science quite well due to the stern teacher who didn't allow anyone to talk in his class. But now, in English, some of the kids were making up for their lost opportunity to taunt her before the teacher arrived.

"Right. That's enough of the talking, thank you," the Doctor said as he entered the room. "As I'm sure you're aware, my name is Mr Logan, I'm your new English teacher, nice to meet you all," He looked around the room, eyes meeting Rose's and a small smirk alighting his face for a second before it was gone and left Rose wondering whether she'd imagined it.

"Now, um, you there," the Doctor pointed to a girl in the back row, one that Rose had never seen before. The girl pointed to herself with eyebrows raised and the Doctor nodded.

"Yes, that's right. What's your name, sorry?"

"Shareen Costello," the girl answered.

"Right, Shareen, could you move up here, please?" he pointed to the seat next to Rose.

Shareen looked puzzled as to why she was being moved when she hadn't done anything wrong but shrugged and picked up her books, plonking herself down next to Rose and turning to smile at her.

Rose smiled back before turning to the Doctor and raising an eyebrow. He just smiled before instructing them to get out their poetry textbooks. One of the kids – Rose thought his name was Lewis – that had been sniggering at her throughout the day, raised his hand into the air.

"Yep?"

"Mr Logan, I…err…met a teacher named Mr Logan this morning, and he said he had me for English, but he was balding and had grey hair so um…"

"You must have been mistaken," the Doctor replied without missing a beat.

"Well, I actually don't think that—"

"Alright, that's enough. Get out your poetry textbook."

Rose giggled under her breath and the Doctor grinned at her when everyone was getting out their poetry textbooks and not paying attention.

"Um…Rose? It is Rose isn't it?" asked Shareen.

"Uh-huh. It is, yeah."

"Well, um, I just wanted to say, I live at the Powell Estate too. I've seen you around before and then I recognised you today. Yeah, so don't feel like you're the only one who lives on a council estate. And don't let _them_ get to you," she said, glaring at Lewis.

"Thanks, Shareen," she smiled.

She glanced up and met the Doctor's eye. She smiled at him and mouthed 'thanks' while gesturing to Shareen. He just smiled knowingly and continued reading out an introduction to poetry from the textbook.

* * *

I was originally going to update this on the weekend but I thought, since I got so many reviews, I'd update it a bit early.

I MIGHT write a chapter on the weekend, if I get the time...

Review =D


	14. Contention

Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter, I got 12 for that chapter. 12!

Oh and **thedeejay** was the **100th reviewer**, so she got to see my story ideas and choose what I'd be writing after Shards of Shattered Roses AND gets to force me to write a oneshot on a topic of her choice.

**I've upped the rating to T for this chapter **(though you should all be at least 13 anyway because you're asked that when you join) just to be safe. And I'll probably need it for later chapters anyway. But I'll say nothing about later chapters, because they are secret, awesome and magical.

Oh and I know some of the chapter names can be a bit of a mouthful, but my aim is to increase your vocabulary with each chapter. There you go.

Why Are You Here?  
By LilyRose XD

Echoing voices  
Around in your head  
Jumbled and whispered  
The same words are said...

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who. I must be content with my Doctor Who DVDS. I am not.

* * *

3 YEARS LATER – 2002

Rose - 15

_Italics _ - Flashbacks

XIII

Contention

"So, Rose…you in or what?"  
"Yeah. Yeah count me in."  
"Shareen?"  
"Uh-huh. I'm there."  
"Alright. We'll see you there at eleven."  
"Right then, see ya!"  
Jimmy Stone and the rest of the boys turned and walked away from the other side of the school fence, leaving Rose and Shareen staring through the wire-mesh inside the school. A few seconds later, the bell rang and Rose and Shareen trudged back up to the main building.

"You excited, Rose?" asked Shareen.  
"You bet. Though I can't drink cause I have to get myself home afterwards."  
"Still, it'll be a hell of a party. But we'll be the youngest one's there."  
"Well if it's Jimmy's friends then yeah, course we will, they're all nineteen," Rose pointed out.  
"Why are they inviting _us_ then?" Shareen wondered.  
Rose shrugged.  
"Don't know. I gotta make sure Mum doesn't find out though."  
"How you gonna do that?" Shareen asked.  
"Sneak out," replied Rose.

*********

The Doctor was reading on his bed when he heard a door creak. Instantly, he was up, shrugging on his brown coat and pocketing his sonic screwdriver. He listened to the soft treads of footsteps on carpet and waited until they'd passed by his door before he tiptoed over to it and placed his ear against the wood. The door swung open with a barely audible squeak and then shut again.

The Doctor opened his own door and sneaked down the hallway and through the front door. He leaned against the balcony railing to see a blonde-haired figure making her way across the courtyard to another figure.

He rushed down the many flights of stairs and followed Rose and Shareen.

It wasn't that difficult, he just kept to the shadows and stayed ten paces or so behind them. Once or twice he thought he saw another figure in the darkness but upon looking again, saw that there was no one.

But then while talking to Shareen, Rose turned her head and saw the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. She swivelled all the way around to face him, and she didn't look happy.

"What are you doing, Doc?" she asked bluntly.  
"I'm…" the Doctor had no idea what to say.  
"Look, Doc, I'm not a little kid anymore, you don't have to follow me around like my Dad or something."  
The Doctor swallowed. That hurt.  
"I just…I just don't want you to get hurt or anything, Rose," he finally answered.  
"I can take care of myself, Doc. Go back home," Rose turned away, taking a step or two away before she turned back.

"What are you doing here, anyway?! Why don't you get a life of your own?! Cause you're ruining mine, Doc. You're ruining mine," Rose sniffed and wiped her eyes.

The Doctor just stared at his feet and nodded, knowing she was right. He _was_ messing up her life. He'd known that all along. But he'd been too selfish to stop himself from meddling. But Rose wasn't satisfied with his silence either.

"Don't stare at the ground and say nothing! You should be angry with me! You should be yelling at me for all the horrible things I just said. Go on. BE, ANGRY!"

Rose bit her lip to stop the sobs from escaping. Her breathing was shallow and uneven and her eyes were becoming shiny and red.

"WHY ARE YOU HERE?!" she yelled before turning on her heel and running off down the street, a bewildered Shareen sprinting after her.

The Doctor was left standing there. His mouth hanging open to reply, but he had no idea what he'd been going to say. He shuddered in a breath before closing it. He ran his hands through his hair and rubbed the heels of his palms in his eyes.

He stood there for a few minutes, undecided as to whether to follow her or go back home like she'd told him too. Everything she'd said was true. He sighed and her last question echoed in his mind. _Why are you here?!_ He could have lied to both her and himself and said that he was here because he was stuck and there were no Time Windows for him to get back to the SS Madame de Pompadour and the TARDIS. But he knew, he'd always known, that he could have tried harder to find Time Windows, tried to work out a pattern, or similarities for when they appeared. Because the droids must have had a plan for when they'd open up their Time Windows. And if the Doctor had focused more on that than on meddling in Rose's life, he'd probably be out of here by now. He bottled up all his feelings and thoughts and pushed them to one side for the moment. Because Rose might not need him, but he needed Rose. He ran after her through the darkness of the night.

The Doctor ran, following the sound of blaring music that was gaining in volume as he got closer to the party. He trailed behind as he saw Rose and Shareen approach a house, not wanting them to turn around and see him. He watched as they spoke to the bouncer for a minute or so before they were permitted inside and they disappeared from his view.

He crept up to the house, hiding behind some bushes as he waited for a few minutes before advancing towards the bouncer. It was clear from the bouncer's expression as he cast an eye over the Doctor's neat attire that he wasn't going to allow him in. But the Doctor tried anyway.

"Sorry, no one over twenty-two years old is allowed inside," the bouncer said.  
"But...my…um…daughter is in there, and her mother and I forbid her from coming to this party so I need to escort her home immediately and punish her," the Doctor invented.  
The bouncer didn't change his expression.  
"Sorry, you'll just have to wait for her to leave."  
"Please! I need to escort her home, right this instant," The Doctor almost felt like stamping his foot in frustration.  
"Sorry, no one over twenty-two is allowed inside. Host's orders."  
The Doctor sighed, defeated and went back into the bushes he was hiding in to skulk.

********

The Doctor watched teens arriving for fifteen minutes or so. The bouncer would ask for their name, see if it was on his list then ask for their I.D. and checking that before letting them in. The Doctor had been watching for almost half an hour before another bouncer came along and the first one ended his shift. The first bouncer handed over his clipboard with the list of invited people before waving goodbye to the second bouncer and walking away past the Doctor and into the darkness. And then finally, _finally_ after sitting there for half an hour thinking of nothing, the Doctor had a plan.

First he removed his coat and suit jacket, setting them down on the dry grass behind the bush. Then he loosened his tie before raising it up and tightening it again around his forehead, with the tie part hanging in front of his left ear and onto his shoulder. He dug out his sunglasses, put them on and then untucked his shirt, before standing and strolling up to the new bouncer.

"Name?" asked the bouncer as the Doctor approached.  
The Doctor could see by the dim light that spilled out from the house behind the bouncer, that this man was younger and not as confident as the other bouncer had been. The Doctor stifled a grin.

"Name's Doc," he answered.  
"Doc. Doc. Hmmm," the bouncer muttered as he trailed a finger down the list of names trying to find 'Doc'.  
"It's pretty dark," the bouncer remarked. "I _think_ it says 'Doc' right here…but,"  
"Let's see," said the Doctor.  
The bouncer handed over the list, and the Doctor could see, that where the bouncer had pointed, it read:

**Dan Tyson**

The Doctor said nothing of this though as he handed back the list, and only said that he thought it read Doc too.

The bouncer still had a qualm or two about letting him in though, as he wasn't certain it said 'Doc'.

"Do you know anyone here?" the bouncer asked.

"Sure, I know Jimmy Stone, I think Rose Tyler said she was coming, along with her friend Shareen Costello."

The bouncer cross-checked these names on the list.

"Well, it does seem like you were invited. If I could just see some I.D then."

The Doctor mentally cursed in Gallifreyian and promised to get himself a fake I.D in the future. Then he realised he had his physic paper and almost smacked himself on the forehead for being such an idiot. He fetched the physic paper out of his trouser pocket and handed it to the bouncer, who examined it for a few seconds before handing it back.

"Well, that all seems to be in order. Proceed then," the bouncer moved aside and motioned for the Doctor to move forward into the midst of the party.

*******

There were people everywhere. The Doctor gave up shouting 'excuse me' as no one could hear him or bothered moving if they did, and just ploughed through the crowd of teenagers. He saw two guys dressed as superheros loudly claiming they could fly as they stood at the top of the staircase and then passed a ratty brown-haired boy who was pouring a bottle of something into a punch-bowl. The Doctor was about to stop the kid when he saw Rose. She and Shareen were chatting with a group of older teenagers, but it seemed on closer inspection, that Shareen was doing most of the talking and Rose just nodded and smiled every now and then, the rest of the time just wiping her red eyes and sniffing.

The Doctor moved towards her, careful to duck so his height didn't set him above the crowd. He stopped a pace or two to her left, making sure she hadn't noticed him approach. She hadn't. She just kept nodding and smiling in the group's conversation when appropriate.

The Doctor watched as the ratty brown-haired kid came up to the group with the punch that he'd spiked. He handed a cup to Rose, who immediately looked at it and asked if it was alcoholic. The boy shook his head no. And so Rose raised the cup to her lips to drink.

Before he knew what he was doing, the Doctor was diving towards her, knocking the cup out of her hand with his right arm and unconsciously shouting.

"ROSE, NOOOOOOO!!!!"

The contents of the cup spilled all over the Doctor as both he and the cup plunged towards the ground, but he didn't even notice for just then he collided head-first with someone else and he blacked out.

*********

He woke up on the floor of the same room, his shirt damp with the punch, with Rose hovering over him looking worried. The rest of the party was continuing around him with no one paying him any attention except Rose and Shareen. He groaned, sitting up and rubbing his head. He stretched his arms out to the side and was surprised for them to hit something that muttered incomprehensibly.

He turned to see Jack, looking ridiculous with his tie around his head like the Doctor and sunglasses hanging off one ear. The Doctor would have laughed at him, but then realised he probably looked the same. He searched around for his sunglasses and found them by his foot. He put them back on before standing up and brushing off his shirt like that would get rid of the damp patches on it. He then reached down and hauled up Jack, who was still looking dazed. He placed an arm round Jack's shoulders to help stop him from falling over and then turned to Rose.

"I'm sorry about what I said, Doc. I didn't mean it. I'm glad that you're looking out for me," was all she said.

The Doctor just replied, "Come on, let's go home."

Jack snapped out of it when the Doctor threw water in his face.

"Come on, Time Agent. We're going."  
"But," Jack protested, "I want to stay for this party. I was actually having some fun. Look just let me have one shot. Just one. We'll go after that. I _promise._"

The Doctor just muttered something that sounded like, "Same old Jack," and dragged him out of there, Rose and Shareen following behind.

The bouncer tried to stop them leaving when they got out the front door.

"I'm sorry, I can't allow you to leave."  
"Why not?" asked the Doctor.  
"Well, _you_ could leave, and you as well," he motioned to Jack, "whoever you are. But the girls are only allowed to leave with other girls."  
The Doctor sighed.  
"Look, I'm actually Rose's father, but I had to sneak in here and collect her because she's got exams tomorrow and has been specifically told _not _to go out partying," the Doctor sent a glare in Rose's direction. "So if you don't mind, I'll be taking my daughter home now."  
"Who are you then?" the bouncer asked Jack.  
The Doctor cut in before Jack could answer.  
"That's…Shareen's father," the Doctor turned to Shareen. "Right, Shareen?"  
Shareen just nodded, going along with it.  
"Alright then Mr…Tyler. But next time, tell us about your predicament and we'll gladly let you in to escort your daughter out."  
"Ah, but that's what I did. But your associate bouncer prevented me from picking up my daughter."  
"I'll have a word with him. Have a safe trip home."

And he let the Doctor, Jack, Rose and Shareen walk away into the night.

*********

They took a long time getting back to the Powell Estates. The whole way back, Rose kept apologising to the Doctor while Jack talked to Shareen or just walked in silence. They were all exhausted, and the Doctor would have lain down on the pavement and gone to sleep if he hadn't been solely focused on getting Rose back to the apartment safely. His head still ached terribly and he was sure that Jack felt the same. Finally, Rose stopped apologising and went to talk to Shareen, leaving the Doctor with Jack.

"I followed you to the party. I was at the Powell Estate earlier and heard Rose talking to Shareen about it and then they set off, and then you came along and went after them, so I followed you. I saw how you were denied entry the first time you tried to get into the party," Jack grinned. "And then after you'd fooled the bouncer I copied your...style," he gestured to the Doctor's tie which was still wrapped around his head, "and I got in. Luckily Jack is such a common name, huh?" Jack chuckled before continuing.

"I saw that kid with the punch and then I was just right of Rose and saw her about to drink it and I just dived at her, but you got their first."

They arrived back at the Estate. They split off into two groups, Jack taking Shareen back to her apartment and the Doctor going with Rose back to her apartment.

"I'm so sorry about what I said, Doc. I really didn't mean it. I just…the party, school, Mum, everything, it's been getting on my nerves and I just…blew. Sorry, Doc," she apologised again as they walked up the stairs.

"Rose,"  
"Yeah?"  
The Doctor smiled. "It's okay."  
He pulled her into a hug, but then she drew back, a frown gracing her features.

"One thing, Doc," she said as they reached the top of the staircase.  
"Mmm?" he replied as they walked down towards the apartment door.  
"Why _are_ you here?" She said it softly this time. There was no trace of anger or bitterness, but the question still chilled the Doctor.  
He swallowed, not knowing how to answer her, but was saved by Jack appearing.

"She's fine. Shareen's fine." Jack whispered as they converged in front of the apartment's front door.  
"Good," nodded Rose.  
The Doctor was about to sonic screwdriver open the door when he remembered that he wasn't supposed to tell Jack who he was, so he let Rose open it with a key. They stepped inside.

*************

Rose had somehow managed to take up her whole double bed on her own. Jack was half-sitting/half-lying beside her bed, leaning on the side of the mattress, his even breath moving the tie that had fallen in front of his face with every breath out. The Doctor was slumped in the only armchair in the room, his feet dangling off one armrest and his head off the other. His glasses were hanging from one ear and his light snoring was the only sound in the room. Until that is, Jackie entered Rose's room in the morning and screamed bloody murder.

* * *

I didn't really like that chapter, (except the end and the Doctor looking like an idiot) but I thought it was necessary to write it and plus, it has Jack, and you all love Jack.

The next chapter will be so awesome it'll make up for this one though, and I'll probably be writing that on the weekend.

Review =D


	15. Effectuation

**I know you all wanted me to write that cliffhanger with Jackie but I didn't because this chapter is 3 years after that one. **(This is the last chapter where I'm going to skip years – I promise.)

If I get a lot of reviews, like I did in the last couple of chapters, THANK TO EVERYONE FOR THAT BY THE WAY, then I'll write a little ficlet, drabbley thing about Jackie walking in for you all.

I actually wrote this chapter yesterday morning, but don't kill me –cowers- because I had a very good reason for not uploading until now.

The reason being that End of Time Part Two was broadcast in Australia on the ABC an hour or so ago and I wanted to make sure as many people had seen End of Time as possible before I uploaded this chapter so not many people are subjected to spoilers. I watched End of Time a day or so after it came out on the fantastic invention of the internet, so thanks to anyone who uploaded it for me.

This brings me to my second point.

***************END OF TIME SPOILERS****************

Anyone who's seen End of Time will have probably guessed by now what this chapter is about. But for people who haven't seen End of Time, it doesn't matter that much because there are hardly any spoilers in this chapter. There are only one or two spoilers. Nothing major like Martha is actually the Rani and has come to kill us all (though how awesome would that be). Let's move on shall we?

Bittersweet  
by LilyRose XD

Bitter shadows sweeping in  
They do not want to leave  
But everything must have its time  
At least shadows have time to grieve  
Happy memories trickle through  
But this only makes it worse  
A reminder that bitter was once sweet  
In memories, the shadow does immerse...

Honestly, I'd put the whole thing in, because it's awesome, but I am too tired and have school tomorrow. So just go to Fictionpress to read all of it.

I might not have a chapter up next weekend because I was so focused on writing this chapter I haven't given much thought to the next five or so chapters. I have the ENTIRE plot sorted out but it's just the filling in of gaps I've got to do. And lots of thinking.

It took me and Eliza (LilyRoseXD) ages to finally work this chapter out because there were lots of different options. So what did we do? We combined them into one awesome one. Yeah.

Randomly, have any of you readers got any idea how long it takes me to find these chapter titles? Oh and the broadening vocabulary thing obviously isn't working because I can't even remember last chapter's title. He he he...

* * *

3 YEARS LATER – 2005

Rose - 18 (turns 19 in April, before she meets 9th Doctor in episode 'Rose')

_Italics _ - Flashbacks

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**END OF TIME SPOILERS**

XIV

Effectuation

The Doctor lowered his menu to see Rose roaring with laughter at the table a few metres away. Jackie was also laughing her head off but luckily, she had her back to him. Jackie's friend Bev was also present, seemingly more tipsy than Jackie herself, which the Doctor knew was quite a feat. Rose's laughter faded into a giggle before she managed to stop. She glanced over to the seat on her left, before remembering that Mickey wasn't present and her face fell. Neither Bev nor Jackie noticed as they were laughing at something or other again.

Rose chewed her bottom lip, before glancing at the clock. She sighed and turned back to her table. The Doctor covered his face with his menu again and looked over at the clock as well. It was almost quarter to eleven. As a waiter passed him, he pretended to read his menu, though he still received a sympathetic smile as the waiter noticed the empty seat in front of him. The Doctor tried to appear very focused on choosing a dessert, until the waiter was out of sight.

As soon as he was gone, the Doctor lowered his menu again to see Rose glancing out the front of the restaurant with a frown gracing her features. Jackie finally noticed her daughter's anxiety.  
"What is it, Rose?" Jackie asked, sending Bev a look when she continued laughing.  
"It's just…Jimbo said he'd pick us up at quarter past ten so we could get back to the Estate and I could go see Mickey for midnight. It's almost been half an hour."  
Jackie smiled a little, "I'm sure he'll turn up, Rose."

But he didn't. Quarter to eleven came and went and there was still no sign of his car. The Doctor was worried too, as his main priority seemed to be keeping Rose happy, and he could clearly see that she was not. He contemplated going up to their table and taking Rose back to the Estate himself, but knew it wasn't a good idea.

Aside from the fact that Jackie would immediately loose her slightly tipsy demeanour and become as cold and murderous as a Dalek, he'd been trying to limit the amount of times Rose saw him nowadays. He'd always known that it was dangerous for Rose to see him, because if she remembered him then it would cause a paradox as she'd meet him before she was supposed to. It hadn't mattered too much when she was little as she wouldn't have remembered him anyway. But now, it was extremely dangerous for Rose to see him. But on that point, the Doctor had accidently meddled a few times in recent years and the world hadn't imploded, and that troubled him. In addition, he was getting very close to crossing his own timeline soon, as it would be 2005 – the year he first met Rose – in little over an hour. But there was no hint of the world collapsing, imploding, exploding, creation of a black hole, or anything else when there should have been by now. He wasn't going to take any chances though, he'd try and stay out of sight as much as possible.

It was eleven fifteen when Rose decided she'd had enough. She got to her feet, picking up her purple beanie and placing it on her head before picking up her long scarf and throwing it around her neck. The Doctor smiled as he watched her, remembering how he'd seen the scarf in a shop a few years ago and given it to her in memory of his 4th incarnation. Jackie also got up, though not looking very excited at the prospect of going out into the snow. The two of them said goodbye to Bev, who stayed in her seat, before exiting the restaurant.

The Doctor waited until they were five or so metres away from the restaurant before getting to his feet, shrugging on his coat and following them. He walked around seven steps behind them, trying to keep to the shadows, but failing as the white snow made him stand out like a dawn on the horizon. Rose seemed too disgruntled about Jimbo not showing up to drive them home to look around her and Jackie was too busy chatting away as always.

About half way back to the Estate, Jackie's phone rang. Her shrill tones drifted back to the Doctor but with the snow falling thickly around them, he only managed to catch:

"Axle broke!...useless…freezing out here…good for nothing…better off without you…don't you dare talk to me like that, Jimbo!...axle broke…"

Jackie lowered her phone from her ear and the Doctor sped up to catch was Rose was saying to her.

"His axle broke! That's why he couldn't give us a lift? Tsch, he's useless, Mum."

Jackie began to reply but the Doctor tuned it out. He fell behind a bit so he wasn't breathing down their necks and retreated to the deepest shadows on the footpath. He watched as Jackie and Rose turned a corner so he rushed after them again to keep Rose in sight. As he was running, he bashed into a group of people who were hiding in the shadows of the footpath. He clambered up, apologised and hurried after Rose and Jackie, but as he turned the corner, he could hear the people exclaiming and coming after him. He spotted Jackie and Rose ten metres away walking along the empty footpath of the main road.

Satisfied that Rose was safe for the next few minutes before she turned onto a different road, the Doctor turned to face the men who were running and stumbling towards him, shouting incoherently and pointing in his face. The Doctor put his hands up in surrender and backed away slowly.

"You!" one of them said, sneering and sticking a grubby finger in the Doctor's face. "You thin' you can mess with us, do ya, sonny? Yeah well, _we_, are the rulers round 'ere, and we don't take no nuffin from no one's, ya got that?"  
The Doctor nodded. "I've got that perfectly, so I'll just be on my way…" he backed away some more, not daring to turn his back to the drunks.  
"Nup. You ain't goin' anywheres till we says you can, right boys?"  
"Yeah that's righ'. You listen to Grubbs, ya good for nothin' snob. You ain't goin' nowheres," one of the other drunks said.  
"Yeah, you tell the snob. You tell 'im, Mitts," said the one called Grubbs.  
They advanced towards him with fists raised, though they were still stumbling slightly. The Doctor was about to run, but then remembered that he'd catch up with Rose and Jackie by running, and then he'd be in even more trouble. He swallowed and backed up more. The drunks just kept advancing. Grubbs, who was at the front of the group, reached out and grabbed the Doctor by his collar, pushing him against a shop window before the Doctor could struggle out of his grasp.

One of the other drunks kicked him hard in the shin, and then Grubbs, Mitts and the rest began punching every centimetre of the Doctor they could reach. Each blow was almost as bad as Jackie's frying pan. The dull, numbing pain went on and on, until a voice called out against the night.

"OI!"

The Doctor didn't think he'd ever been so glad to hear Jackie's voice in his life. Grubbs let go of him and turned to face Jackie who was strolling back down the street with her frying pan clutched threateningly in one hand. The Doctor slumped to the ground, gritting his teeth and screwing up his eyes to keep from crying out in pain, he didn't want the drunks to remember he was there.

"How dare you! That man has done nothing to you, and you just go up and whack him about. How despicable."

The Doctor thought that was a bit rich coming from Jackie but decided that now wasn't the time to mention it. He was still in shock that Jackie was helping him.

Grubbs looked like a kid who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie-jar. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, while staring at his shoelaces and muttered an apology. Jackie wasn't impressed.

"Don't apologise to me. Apologise to him," she pointed at the Doctor who was still lying dazedly on the ground. Both the drunks and Jackie turned to him, and he saw Jackie narrow her eyes when she realised that it was the same man she'd been trying to catch for years. She said nothing though, for which the Doctor was eternally grateful.

"Sorry," mumbled Grubbs, and he looked back at Jackie for reassurance that he'd done it right this time.

She just nodded and then suddenly the drunks scarpered with a speed that took both Jackie and the Doctor by surprise.

Jackie advanced towards the limp form of the Doctor, still brandishing the frying pan. She glanced back to see Rose was out of earshot, still waiting where Jackie left her twenty five metres down the street.

"Years you've been following my daughter around. Years I've been trying to capture you. I should call the police on you right now and settle this once and for all," she dug out her phone with her free hand and waved it in the Doctor's face.

"But…I'm giving you this one chance. I'm not going to call the police on you now, but you've got to promise that you'll stay away from my Rose and I'll never see you again. Because if I see you, you're gonna be locked up for life."

The Doctor just nodded his assent, before spitting out a mouthful of blood and staring up at her.

"I promise."

"Good," was all Jackie said.

Then she swung the frying pan and knocked him out.

* * *

The last Time Lord in existence, truly one of the most intellectual beings in the universe, renowned for his intelligence, quick thinking and his knowledge, and the first noise out of his mouth?

"Eerrrggghhh," the Doctor muttered, coming to.

He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, before running a hand through his hair and turning on his side to spit out another mouthful of blood. He coughed a few times, before gradually being able to get on his hands and knees. It took him a few minutes, but he finally managed to stand up, he leaned against a shop window and glanced around him.

Rose and Jackie were gone, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed, the streets were empty of people. He glanced overhead. No fireworks yet. That must mean it wasn't midnight yet. He breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to miss the start of the year when Rose would meet him. He brushed some snow off his coat, and immediately memories flooded his brain like a tide.

_He sat in the cold black snow._

_All around him was the wreckage of the blown-up house. He watched some pieces of the house drift down from the sky and settle into the snow._

_Distantly, he heard the sound of his old TARDIS dematerialising and taking his 9__th__ form and Rose away from here and despite himself, he glanced up just to make sure it wasn't his TARDIS. But no. His TARDIS was still there, solid and welcoming. He heard Charles Dickens chucking to himself away in the distance, and he sat in the snow blackened with soot, until he was numb, not only from the cold either._

_He said goodbye, brushed off any clinging snow and left._

He clamped down on his memories and emotions and staggered down the street.

It was lucky that there was snow, in a way, for it left crisp footprints for him to follow. He tried to run, almost collapsed from pain and opted for a fast long-strided walk which didn't hurt his legs as much. He had to reach them before midnight.

He rushed into the courtyard of the Powell Estate, decorated with multi-coloured Christmas lights, and seeing Rose and Jackie up ahead, swerved into the shadows of the building on either side. He crept along, gradually catching up until he was level with them as they walked along. But then he stopped.

There was the TARDIS. It was glowing, pulsing with energy and strength. His mouth traced long-lost Gallifreyian words as he stared and stared. There it was, waiting for him, ready to whisk him away wherever he wished to go. But how had it got there? Nefaro – the clock droid leader – had said that they'd use the energy from the TARDIS to create more Time Windows, but here it was. Healthy, strong, whole. He was about to rush to it, to open its doors and become himself again but then realised that Jackie would spot him as he ran across the courtyard and decided to wait until they were gone.

"Late now, I've missed it," Rose said to Jackie. "Midnight. Mickey's gonna be calling me everything, this is your fault."  
They walked past the TARDIS without glancing in its direction.  
"No it's not. It's Jimbo. He said he was gonna give us a lift and then he said his axle broke. I can't help it," Jackie retorted fiercely.  
"Get rid of him, Mum, he's useless," Rose replied.  
"Listen to you, with a mechanic."  
The Doctor retreated further into the shadows as they passed him.  
Jackie stopped walking. "Be fair though, my time of life, I'm not gonna do much better."  
"Don't be like that," Rose patted Jackie's shoulder and tucked a strand of Jackie's hair behind her ear. "Never know, could be someone out there."  
"Maybe," Jackie said doubtfully. "One day." Rose's face lit with a small smile.  
"Happy New Year!" Jackie suddenly exclaimed.  
"Happy New Year!" Rose replied and Jackie hugged her daughter.  
Rose drew back. "Don't stay out all night," she told her mother, walking over to the stairs.  
"Try and stop me!" Jackie replied, going off in the other direction.

The Doctor smiled from the shadows, but it slipped off his face as he heard a cry of pain that sounded horribly familiar. He poked his head around the corner to see Rose looking back into the shadows to his right, a frown etched on her face. The Doctor turned to the shadows, and almost exclaimed in shock.

There he was. There was another Doctor in the shadows. He looked the same, except older, wiser and sadder. The Doctor knew he must be from his future otherwise he'd have remembered this. The other Doctor seemed to be grimacing in pain, but it was hard to tell due to the depth of the shadows he was lurking in.

"You right mate?" Rose asked the other him.  
"Yeah." He managed to reply, leaning on the wall behind him.  
"Too much to drink?" Rose grinned knowingly.  
"Something like that," the other Doctor nodded.  
There was a pause.  
"Maybe it's time you went home," Rose said, and the real Doctor smiled sadly.  
"Yeah…" the other him replied vaguely, the same sad smile just visible on his shadowed face.  
"Anyway," Rose smiled, "Happy New Year!"  
"And you," he replied.  
Rose turned away and continued her walk towards the stairs. The other Doctor got a bit of a desperate look on his face.  
"What year is this?" he asked suddenly.  
Rose turned back, surprised, but then smiled as she took in his question.  
"Blimey, how much have you had?"  
The other Doctor tilted his head to the left and back again and made a non-committal sort of noise.  
Rose looked thoroughly amused, "2005. January the First."  
"2005," the other Doctor echoed.  
Rose nodded, readjusting her crossed arms.  
"Tell you what," the other Doctor said, smiling slightly. "I bet you're gonna have a really great year."  
"Yeah?" Rose grinned.  
The other Doctor smiled properly now. A smile that was both sorrowful and joyful and the real Doctor couldn't help but copy his expression.  
Rose nodded again and turned away, before turning back and grinning widely.  
"See ya," was all she said before she walked back to the stairs and disappeared.

The other Doctor was still smiling, but the real Doctor was confused.

Why would he go back and see Rose when he'd spent all these years with her as she was growing up? And why go back to this moment, when he was here before anyway? And why wasn't there a paradox. The universe should have imploded because he was crossing his own timeline, but it hadn't. What was stopping it from imploding? And why? He had so many questions, but he couldn't just go up to himself and ask. Even though the universe hadn't imploded yet, that didn't mean it wouldn't.

He watched as the other Doctor turned towards him, so he had to scramble back and run away from the corner, down to some more secluded shadows where he wouldn't be noticed. He watched as the other Doctor stumbled slightly as he made his way towards the TARDIS, his coat swishing around him.

_He got up on his knees and peeked over the edge of the couch to see the edge of a coat swishing and disappearing around a corner. _

His. Coat. Swishing. Around. Him.

_From behind him, he heard a snort of laughter and he whipped his head up, looking in the mirror to see nothing behind him but a corner of a coat disappearing around a corner._

He wanted to bash his head against the bricks behind him because he'd been so stupid. No wonder Jack had been so confused when he'd asked him about it. It wasn't Jack at all that he kept seeing. It was himself.

* * *

Yeah the Doctor's a bit of an idiot isn't he?

I hope you readers had worked it all out before he did.

Oh and also, I'm going to be writing a piece (or maybe a couple) on End of Time because I can.

And thedeejay, I know that wasn't in my ideas list but that's because I just had the idea. And I don't want to leave them too late.

Oh and yeah, that's the chapter I've been wanting to write for ages. And now I have a new chapter I'm dying to write =D. But it will have to wait...

REVIEW! because it's Monday tomorrow, and I have to go to school -.-


	16. Stakeout

I…am godly.

I've spent the whole day writing thanks to LilyRose and thus have written:

8,162 words today. Win.

Oh and also, I handed in this 2000 word paper yesterday and someone in the class couldn't believe I'd written 2000 words.

She said she'd never written 2000 words in her whole life.

I felt like showing her my fanfiction account and my total words archived, which is (including everything I've updated today):

105,309 words

Epic. Win.

I'm updating the Jackie piece I promised you all after this is uploaded, and then I'm uploading a Jack-companion oneshot I wrote for thedeejay since she was the 100th reviewer, AND THEN, I'm uploading a piece on End of Time.

Why? Because I have no life and should be learning about 30 Chinese characters for my unit test on Monday. Though I am proud of myself for being able to write

我们都喜欢蛋糕。

Which means, "we all like cake," or "we love cake."

Which should be true.

I'd put that "we all like pie" but I don't know what the character for 'pie' is…

Keep an eye out for all my updates today =D

Gone  
By LilyRose XD

We never know what we have  
Until is slowly seeps away  
Then we realize what we've lost  
And the pain will not allay

And as we desperately scrape  
For an ounce of living hope  
We can either find our missing ends  
Or find a way to cope

So now that there is a time  
Where he has a chance to move on  
Will he take the final calling  
Or is he too far gone

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who.

* * *

XV

Stakeout

The biggest worry the Doctor had was not Rose, for once. Ever since New Year's the notion of his future self had been nagging and nagging at him. Once he'd gotten past wondering about why the world wasn't exploding, his Time Lord brain was filled with other questions. Why was his future self here? Why would he even bother coming back here when he'd already been here in the first place? And didn't his future self understand how risky it was for him to be here when the time was drawing nearer for Rose to meet his 9th self? He spent hours thinking about questions such as this, but could draw no conclusions. The only notion he had was that he might be dying in the future. But even that didn't make sense. It wasn't like he couldn't regenerate and _then_ come and see Rose. In fact, it would even make it easier because Rose wouldn't recognise him. He was baffled by himself, which wasn't anything new, but he couldn't exactly just go up and ask himself why he was here.

To be honest, he'd been looking. It wasn't easy snooping around the house with Jackie on the prowl and Mickey spending so much time at the apartment, but he managed as best he could. Most of the time, he'd wait until Rose was at work and Jackie was out with Bev or something, but sometimes he'd hear footsteps tip-toeing through the hallway and being convinced they weren't Jackie, Rose or Mickey who were usually in the living room, he'd get up and peek around his door. Nothing. The only time he'd come close was when he'd seen the shadow of a coated figure on the wall and gone after it, tip-toeing towards Rose's empty room in pursuit. But he'd entered the room to find the window wipe open and a muttered Gallifreyian curse drifting away on the breeze.

Another time, he'd heard the tip-toeing footsteps early in the morning, and without checking to see if they were Jackie or not, he'd sonic-screwdrivered his door open and burst out.

"Ah ha!" he'd cried as he pointed towards the figure. His finger had fallen as he realised that Mickey was gaping at him in shock with a wrapped present tucked under one arm. The Doctor had just make out the hastily scrawled tag hanging off it, which had read: 'Happy Valentine's Day, Rose.'

His outburst had unfortunately woken Jackie, and he'd been chased out of the house with a frying pan and a few slaps around the head, before Jackie had called the police on him, just like she'd promised she would on New Year's. It had taken almost the whole day, but the Doctor had eventually given the police the slip. Unfortunately, Jackie became warier and even got out the key that fit Pete's door when Mickey told her that the Doctor had come out of that room. The Doctor had had to stuff his messily strewn belongings in his pockets and hide under the loose floorboards until Jackie was satisfied he wasn't living in there.

************

He was catching up on some light reading with a book called: 'Survey of the Universes,' and highlighting all the mistakes in the book, making a mental note to call the publishers and teach them what really happened when a black hole swallowed a dwarf star, when he heard the footsteps again. He was up with his ear against the door within seconds, his glasses pressed into his face by it. One he was certain it wasn't Jackie, he buzzed the sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, and gently turned the handle. He crept out into the hallway, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He heard Rose and Jackie talking in the living room while the tv blared, its flickering glow the only light in the hallway.

He stumbled forward with hands out in front of him like a blind man, grabbing the air in an attempt to find himself. What he'd do if he did, he had no idea. But he did know it wasn't a very good idea in case time was done messing with him and caused a paradox like it should have several times by now. The footsteps retreated around the corner of the hallway towards the bathroom. He followed, but then heard Jackie's voice approaching and he panicked. He glanced around the hallway but knew he'd never make it to one of the rooms before Jackie saw him. He noticed a cupboard just beside him and just managed to pull it open, hoist himself onto a shelf and close it before Jackie flicked on the hallway light.

There was something very familiar about his situation, but at first, the Doctor couldn't work out what it was. Then he realised, he'd hidden from Jackie in this same cupboard more than ten years ago.

_He waited in the dim light that filtered through from the hallway. He held his breath for a while but heard no footsteps approaching the cupboard. She mustn't have seen him climb in. But her anger would definitely be back, and if she found him, then nothing would defer the hand that held the frying pan, and he'd feel the full force of it. _

_So he waited with bated breath as she stomped up and down the hallway, into all the rooms, searching for him but not finding him. Then she opened the main door and went out for a minute or two, no doubt to snoop around, trying to find him behind the bins or something. She came back in and must have concluded that he'd gone for she went back into the kitchen and presumably put down the frying pan. _

_Slowly, he relaxed. She hadn't found him yet, and in the morning he could find some other hiding spot that was better. Not that this hiding spot was bad. As long as she didn't take away too many towels, she wouldn't find him. And while he was here, he could think. _

_All he had to do was get a better hiding spot, somewhere closer to the kitchen so he could eat, and then wait for a Time Window to appear, or if the droids came before he could get back then to stop them from taking Rose's brain and then going back through a Time Window. The situation wasn't nearly as bad as he'd thought. As long as Jackie didn't find him and kick him out, he'd be fine. _

_So he lay there on his back on the shelf, staring up at the bottom of the next shelf. He managed to get a hand into his pocket and pulled out various objects and tinkered. Occasionally sonicing them to see what happened. Something rolled out of his pocket and he grabbed it, judging by its spherical shape for it to be some kind of ball. He positioned a towel against the cupboard door and bounced the ball off the towel for a while, muting the sound with more towels on the floor of the shelf. Then he soniced it and by the dim blue light realised he was holding the eye. He hastily shoved it back into his pocket._

He grinned in the dark at the memory and rummaged in his pocket for a while before drawing out said eye, remembering finding it on the droid ship all that time ago. He pocketed it as he heard Jackie go into her room, and then come back out into the hallway. She passed right by him on her way to the bathroom and then there was silence for a few seconds before she screamed.

"What did I tell you?! What did I say?! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE BEFORE I BASH YOUR BRAINS INTO NEXT YEAR!!!" There was a sort of pitiful yelping noise and scrambled footsteps past the cupboard, and then the roar of Jackie and she steamrolled passed the cupboard in pursuit of the future Doctor.

The real Doctor couldn't resist chuckling at how he'd got out of the frying pan and the future him had got into the fire. Then he laughed some more at his joke. Out of the frying pan. Ha ha.

He waited until Jackie's screeches had faded before edging forward on the shelf towards the cupboard door. He pushed it open but overdid it a bit and ended up falling off the shoulder-high shelf and landing on the floor of the hallway with a thump. He groaned as he sat up and straightened his glasses, before getting up, closing the cupboard and going back to his room.

He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There was definitely something going on. His future self had to be here for a reason, and he had to find out what that reason was. He was still staring at the ceiling and trying to figure it out when he heard the front door slam and Jackie muttering to herself as she started back up the hallway. There was no second set of footsteps. He wondered where his future self was hiding out. Behind the bins maybe, or on the roof perhaps. He almost died of shock when he saw a shimmer in the air appearing out of the corner of his eye. He sat bolt upright and watched as a clock droid jumped out of the shimmer, which he now realised was a Time Window.

The droid was just the same as he remembered from the ship. It had the fitting suit over the clockwork that somewhat resembled human skin with the business suit over the top. The same possibly-real human skin on its face with possibly-real eyes, moulded nose, two perfect eyebrows, pointed teeth and normal-looking ears. They had somehow managed to get hold of enough blond hair to create a blond wig for this droid, and its tongue was a cheap plastic instead of Nefaro's – the clock droid leader - tongue, which had been metal.

The droid looked surprised to see him there. Well, not surprised, because its face was incapable of such an expression, but its eyebrows shifted downward as did the curve of its mouth while its nose wrinkled somehow and the Doctor got the impression that he was some sort of foul stench that was under the clock droid's nose. Its mouth clicked open gradually, and the Doctor looked at an imaginary watch on his wrist as he waited.

"You're still here?" it asked in monotone.  
"Unfortunately, in your opinion. Yes, yes I am," replied the Doctor trying to look as bored as possible. His mind was trying to figure out a way to get past the droid and into the still shimmering Time Window behind it. The droid saw where the Doctor's eyes were directed.  
"Go on then," it motioned with its sharp blades attached to its wrists for the Doctor to have a shot at jumping through the Time Window. The Doctor's gaze shifted to the blades, and he swallowed. There was no chance of drawing it away from the window now. He felt extremely annoyed that Nefaro had to go and give them brains so they knew what he was planning. Nevertheless, he tried to get a conversation going.

"So…Time Windows…fascinating, huh?"  
The droid looked as confused as it could manage to with its clockwork face.  
"Time Windows are our great marvels," it finally replied, "we do not need to be fascinated by them. They should be fascinated with us, their creators."  
"Yeah…" said the Doctor, wondering how a Time Window could be fascinated with anything. "Right. Well you'd want to make sure you're putting them in the right places, wouldn't you, before you go and blow an unnecessary hole in Time?"  
"We do make sure," it said as it attempted to frown, wondering if the Doctor was insulting his ability to choose a time to put a Time Window.  
"Oh, good, good. I always like a man..or droid…who knows his stuff. Measure twice, cut once, yeah?"  
The Doctor was thoroughly enjoying winding up the clock droid (pun intended), and he almost laughed at the sight of the droid's expression; a mixture of blankness, with a frown, and eyes shifting mechanically from side to side in its confusion at the Doctor's strange words.  
The Doctor finally broke the silence.  
"Well," he motioned at the evaporating Time Window behind the droid, "you'd better go, I guess. Unless you want to be stuck with me for eternity until the next Time Window shows up."  
"It won't be eternity, it'll be in just a few—", the droid stopped, realising it was about to admit when the next Time Window would show up. It didn't grace the Doctor with a goodbye, instead just jumping back into the Time Window just before it disappeared completely.

The Doctor was back on his bed, pondering the droid's words. The next Time Window will be in just a few…what? Hours? Days? Weeks? Years? It was impossible to know, especially because he had no idea how long a droid considered a long time. But then he thought about it some more. And had an idea. Maybe it was time to go back to his old notion of Time Windows appearing at important times of Rose's life…

**************

The Doctor twirled the little knob on his alarm clock to set the time he wanted it to go off. Technically, he shouldn't even need an alarm clock, being a Time Lord and all that, but it was good to have it just in case. He remembered more than one occasion on which he'd slept in. The alarm clock was set for 7:15 am, which was 15 minutes earlier than Rose's alarm clock would go off, as he'd found out by checking it earlier in the day. He set the alarm clock down on his messy bedside table, which held a book mountain, several alien knick-knacks, and an open jar of marmalade with a sticky spoon poking out. He pulled out a battered copy of the last Harry Potter book and settled down to read.

The Doctor was not happy when he was woken at 7:15am the next day. He whimpered and pulled the covers over his head before remembering who he was, where he was, and why there was a tinny noise next to his ear. He grumbled and got up, trying in vain to flatten his bed hair, and having trouble putting on his Converses. It was a good thing he'd woken up early because he took such a long time to get dressed that he finished at the same time as Rose. He muttered something about humans and clock droids making him domestic and exited his room.

Some days it was easy to have breakfast. Jackie didn't get up every day so the Doctor could munch happily on marmalade toast and a banana without worrying about being assaulted. But if it was such as morning, he always hid the frying pan which Jackie left out on the bench each night.

Thankfully, it was one of those mornings. He masticated his toast though kept glancing at the window to make sure it was open and wide enough for him to fit through should Jackie decide to get up. But she didn't. Rose had made herself breakfast in bed, which left the Doctor with the kitchen all to himself.

He waited three minutes after Rose had shut the main door before following her. He kept her in sight, though this time, it was to ensure he went to the right place rather than just for her safety. At least, that's what he told himself.

The bus was the worst. He had to wait until Rose had settled down in a seat facing away from the door before jumping on at the last minute before it pulled away. Then all through the bus ride, he kept a newspaper up to his face and sat as far away from Rose and as close to the door as possible. When Rose got off, the Doctor had to leap out of his seat and out the door just before the doors closed behind him. He followed Rose across the busy main road and into her work, Henriks – the department store.

He didn't follow Rose around the whole day. He stayed down in the basement and watched the mannequins most of the time, but none of them moved, and nothing happened when he buzzed the sonic screwdriver at them. When Henriks was closing, he went up the service lift, remembering how his 9th self and Rose went up the same lift and Rose told him how she thought the mannequins must be dressed-up students. He smiled as he remembered because it hadn't happened yet. If he knew the exact date when it did happen, he wouldn't need to follow Rose around and could just go on that day and get out of here through the Time Window he predicted would appear. But he had no idea of the actual date. He knew it was in March, but not exactly when.

At night, when he was sure Rose and Jackie were absorbed in a tv show, he crept out of the apartment. He made his way to the London Eye, thankful the lateness of the time had gotten rid of most of the citizens around. He opened up the hatch that led to the underground lair of the Nestene Consciousness and lowered himself down the ladder. He looked around once he was inside, but there was no red light or steam like they'd been when his 9th self had come here with Rose. He had a quick look around, but it was deserted and he left.

The next week or so passed thus. Every day the Doctor followed Rose to work, examined the mannequins, and then checked up on the underground lair of the Nestene Consciousness at night. Over the course of the week, he saw signs that something was happening. The mannequins might twitch once or twice, but seemed incapable of movement just yet. Then one night the Nestene Consciousness moved in beneath the London Eye.

Each day became tense. He packed all his belongings into his pockets each morning before leaving and every day when he came back, he'd unpack them again. He planned out a goodbye to Rose, but knew it'd be impossible with his 9th self hanging around somewhere. The mannequins began moving around, but stayed wary of him whenever he buzzed the sonic screwdriver in their 'faces'. Then one day, two or so weeks after he'd begun the stakeout, he woke up and knew it would be today. Today he was leaving forever.

* * *

Oh, was that a bit of a cliffhanger? We haven't seen one of those in a while.

So, the cliffhangers are officially back =D

I'm sure you're as pleased about that as I am.

It's important that you understood the last chapter, if you didn't that's fine, just PM me and tell me, and I'll reply with an explanation.

Make sure you understand it.

Oh and how much awesomer is it to say that you 'masticated' your toast, instead of just 'ate' or 'chewed'?

I aim to increase your skills in awesome vocabulary.

Review =D

And thanks to all reviews for last chapter, I read every single one...about three times...shut up.


	17. Lam

Such is Australia.

Today when I left the house, I was wearing a hat and seriously considering wearing sun-screen. When I got back, I appeared to be a drowned-rat who was shielding the precious Paper Towns (By John Green) from the oncoming onslaught of rain and hail with my hat.

There are three references in this chapter. Eliza spotted them all when she edited. CAN YOU?!

Well, you'll get one because its so darn obvious that its dancing with Elmo on your face.

...

Selfish  
by LilyRoseXD (Eliza)

An oncoming storm  
Fire, ice and rage  
Always hiding, always running  
But things change in old age.

He tires and becomes selfish  
As most people do  
And it brings out the human in him  
But it brings out the other side too.

Because hiding away and running  
Meant that no one had to know  
The guilt that rotten through him  
Alas old regrets do start to show.

Disclaimer: Own nothing, not even the stuff that I've subtly referenced.

Thanks for all reviews.

TARDISQueen - This chapter _actually_ has dialogue. Which is rare. Be amazed.  
MsTaeddy - Yes, something is seriously going to happen. For once. Ha ha.  
Shinku-Okami - It was an epic win. Truly.  
el lobo feroz - Your welcome with improving your vocabulary. This chapter isn't such a mouthful but it does maintain its awesome.

Sorry this took a while to upload. Eliza took forever to edit, and then Thesaurus (dot) com wouldn't work so I had to find other means to come up with an awesome sounding synonymic word for the chapter title.

Are you all as amazed as me at the length of the title of this chapter? It's only three letters. The only other chapter will three letters is Vex.

* * *

XVI

Lam

He listened, completely tense and frozen sitting on the edge of his bed, to the footsteps as they tip-toed past Jackie's door. Though why you'd bother tip-toeing, the Doctor wasn't sure. Once he was certain the footsteps definitely didn't belong to a future him, he sprang up off the bed and made his way to the door, flinging it open in order to catch Rose before she left for work. But it wasn't Rose. His ears were full of a high-pitched shrieking and then out of nowhere came, of course, the frying pan. The Doctor distantly wondered if Jackie slept with it like it was a teddy bear or something. He had no more time for such thoughts as the dreaded piece of stainless steel was flying towards his head once more, so he ducked and rolled out past her legs and then sprinted the two steps to the door.

He threw it open and darted along the wraparound balcony with Jackie running behind him, pulling her mobile out of her dressing gown pocket as she went. She dialled so fast, the Doctor thought she must have the emergency services on speed-dial, though it seemed a bit pointless when you only had to dial three numbers anyway. He reached the stairs, and instead of going down, he stupidly went up them. It was only a minute before the police appeared behind her, the Doctor snuck a glance over his shoulder to see at least half a dozen officers sprinting along in their heavy boots beside Jackie who looked a right sight with her un-brushed hair whipping around her face, her eyes wide and cackling sounds being produced from her throat.

The Doctor ran up flight after flight of stairs, not really knowing where he was going with this stupid plan of his. Sometimes he darted out onto one of the level balconies, rushed around all four sides of the building and then rushed up more stairs when he got back to the stairwell. On one such trip as this, he passed Jack who was snoring softly using his coat as a pillow on the cold concrete floor. The Doctor finally got an idea and kicked the Captain awake as he passed him.

"JACK, USE THE VORTEX MANIPULATOR!" the Doctor yelled over his shoulder just as he was reaching the stairwell again. He took the stairs three at a time up the final flight of stairs to the roof, bursting through the door at the top and he kept running over to one edge of the roof, only to be hit by a frying pan and three police clubs. He went down, immediately using his hands to help him get back up, with his back screaming out in pain. His wrists were grabbed by police hands and he was hauled backwards away from the edge of the roof. He struggled against their clutches and eventually broke free. He sprinted towards the edge, fiercely hoping that Jack hadn't moved away from the balcony railing. He slowed himself down as he got nearer and then simply fell down off the roof.

The brutal wind spun him around until he was facing the policemen and Jackie, he watched both party's gaping and gormless faces as he plummeted towards the balcony one level below. He slammed into the balcony railing and the pain was almost enough for him to forget to cling onto the metal bar, but he managed. Eyes screwed up in pain, he hauled himself over the edge, collapsing onto the concrete on which Jack had until so recently been sleeping on. He opened his eyes to slits, seeing the man in question leaning over him concernedly. The Doctor groaned in pain as he held up one arm.

"Get us out of here."

**************

If the Doctor had ever had a worse trip through the Vortex using Jack's Vortex Manipulator, he was yet to remember it. He clung onto the gadget with one hand while the rest of him was being crushed, he wasn't able to breathe at all, though he doubted there was air in the Vortex anyway, and there were thick and tight iron bands around his ribs, which only seemed to double the already existing pain he'd experienced. Then finally it was gone, and he was gulping down air he didn't exactly need due to have a Respiratory Bypass System and lying on the floor. He slackened his grip on the Vortex Manipulator and let his arm fall to the ground.

"Where are we?" he managed to croak.  
"On the Powell Estate and it's still today but three in the afternoon. There's this drunk's apartment I found once. Cept the door's had a lock fitted since last time I was here," Jack replied, and the Doctor heard him jiggling the door handle of said door. The Doctor, still breathing heavily from his escape and then trip through the Vortex, reached into his jacket pocket, his fingers closing around the little gadget, which could and would change everything.

"Use this," was all he said, holding out the sonic screwdriver.

************

The Doctor found himself in the same apartment he'd hidden in to get away from Jackie almost fifteen years ago.

_He walked past more apartment doors trying to find a place to hide before finding one door ajar. He pushed it open and stepped inside a few steps, stopping for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He listened but could hear no one. _

"_Hello?" he called out into the darkness of the hallway. "Is anyone here?"_

_He received no reply so he went around to each room of the house, making sure it was completely empty before he relaxed slightly and went to close the front door so he could hide here from Jackie until the morning. _

_As he approached the front door he noticed that it had no locks or bolts on the inside apart from the keyhole, to which there was no key. He reached into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver to sonic the door locked but couldn't find it. He searched his other pockets before remembering what had happened. _She held out her hand, palm up, towards him and he silently passed her the sonic screwdriver.

_He groaned in frustration to the empty hallway. He'd given Rose the sonic screwdriver to look at but hadn't gotten it back from her before Jackie burst in. He needed it back. _

_What if Jackie took it from Rose and smashed it to little pieces with her frying pan? How could he ever make another one without the TARDIS? How could he ever get out of this time period without it? Thoughts such as these circled around in his head as he sat on the floor in the hallway of the abandoned apartment. He rocked back and forth with his hands clutching his knees, eyes wide and red-rimmed from his lack of sleep. How long had he been here? Not even a whole day yet. But he hadn't slept since before he visited her apartment. And how long ago was that? It must have been weeks, he supposed, for him to feel this tired.  
So he fretted about his poor sonic screwdriver and about Rose and Jackie and her frying pan and wondered how he'd ever get out of here as he rocked back and forth in the hallway, until finally, he fell asleep. _

He and Jack were sitting with their backs against the walls in the hallway. The hallway still managed to be gloomy even though it was three in the afternoon according to Jack. The Captain placed the sonic screwdriver down onto the carpet between them.

"Doctor, tell me everything."

************

And so the Doctor did. He told Jack how he'd come to be here, the droids throwing him through a Time Window into Rose's life, living through her childhood, Jackie's frequent attempts to be rid of him, following Rose around and looking for a way out.

"But wait a minute, why wasn't Rose with you when you went to this ship?" Jack frowned.  
The Doctor didn't reply, he just averted his eyes from the inquisitive Time Agent and stared at his very interesting shoes. Jack didn't say anything either, whether out of a loss of words or out of still not understanding, the Doctor wasn't sure. After a long stretched out silence with only the TV blaring from the apartment above filling it, Jack asked what the Doctor was doing now.

"I'm getting out, Jack. Finally, after all these years, I _know_ a Time Window will show up today."  
"Why today?" asked Jack.  
"Because this is the day that I meet Rose. The old me, of course, with big ears and a leather jacket,"  
Jack looked hurt, like the Doctor had said something that offended him.  
"Why'd you leave me behind?" he asked out of nowhere.  
The Doctor opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
"You're wrong, Jack. You're a fixed point in Time, a constant, and that's never supposed to happen. You, with this never dying, it's just wrong."  
"What about you then?" Jack shot back.  
"I'm old yes, but I _can_ die. If I die before I regenerate, or if I run out of regenerations, I'm dead."  
Jack seemed taken aback at the Doctor's bluntness about it.  
"Sometimes I wonder why I go on anyway," the Doctor continued, "if my life is full of this," he gestured around to the walls around them, but Jack sensed he didn't just mean hiding in someone's apartment.  
"I'm always running. Running, running and I never stop. I never look back because I can't. If I look back I see what I've done, what I've caused, and I wonder whether I did it for others or if I did it because I could. Because I'm the last great almighty Time Lord and I have that power. But it's sickening."

"AND THERE'S NO BALANCE," he yelled suddenly, his mouth twisting into a grimace and eyes screwing up. "There's no balance for me. I can't just quit, I can't stop, I can't just sit here and do _nothing,_" he spat out the word like poison. "But I can't keep saving people, because what am I doing really? I'm just messing up history. My whole life, I'm just messing with Time, supposedly doing good but ending up committing acts of great evil. Such is my existence, Jack."

Jack was shocked at the Doctor's outburst. The old Doctor would have never said anything like that. He might have been thinking it, but he never burdened others with his thoughts. Jack had a sudden thought, and was disgusted with himself for thinking it, but knew it was true. This Doctor was selfish. And he knew it. But what did he do about it?

They'd been sitting there for over an hour. The silence was thick and heavy and settled upon their shoulders like it was the weight of the world. The Doctor maintained an interest in his shoes the whole time while Jack stared at anything that wasn't the Doctor or fiddled with his Vortex Manipulator.

"Jack, what time is it?" the Doctor finally asked, his voice rusty with disuse as it broke the silence.  
"Uh…four-thirty," he answered, checking the time on the Vortex Manipulator and realising the irony of a Time Lord asking him for the time. "Why?" he asked, choosing not to bring up the Doctor's earlier breakdown.  
The Doctor didn't answer his question, just groaned and put his head in his hands.  
"Not today," he muttered. "Not. Today," he sighed and got up, wincing as pain shot through his back and ribs. "I've got to go, Jack. Goodbye," the Doctor said brusquely.  
"Goodbye?" Jack frowned.  
The Doctor nodded.  
"I'm going to get my life back."  
They exchanged a very manly hug, and then the Doctor began walking down the hallway.  
"You take care, Doc," Jack called after him.  
The side of the Doctor's mouth quirked into a half-grin. He shook his head and sighed.  
"Why does everyone call me that?"  
And then he was gone.

*************

The Doctor raced away from the Powell Estate, cursing in Gallifreyian for getting side-tracked. This was his only chance at getting out of Rose's life and back to his TARDIS and he might miss it. He sprinted through the streets in what he thought was the general direction of Henriks. He'd thought about taking the bus, but decided against it due to the fact he had no idea what number bus Rose took and he had no money for a bus ticket.

It took several wrong turns and many pointing outs from people but he finally got there. He ran towards the doors, waiting for the automatic sensors to sense his presence and open up for him. But they didn't. So he slammed into the door. This was probably due to the fact that the doors were locked. Or maybe because the doors weren't automatic at all. He fell onto the pavement, but quickly jumped up again. He was about to unlock the doors with the sonic screwdriver but then saw the guard patrolling around the store and decided against it. He checked the time on a wall-mounted clock inside the store. 5:03pm. The store had just closed, which meant that Rose would be taking the lottery money down to Wilson the chief electrician right about now…

He ran around to the back, knowing his way from all the times he'd followed Rose to work over the past few months and from when his Ninth incarnation and Rose escaped later on today. He caught the service lift down to the basement, and then the lift doors opened to reveal the aforementioned leather-jacketed Doctor running down a hallway towards where Rose must be with the beeping device clutched in one hand.

The Tenth Doctor waited a few seconds and then ran after him as quietly as he could. He sincerely hoped the Ninth Doctor wouldn't turn around and see him, because then things could get _really_ bad. The Ninth Doctor stopped suddenly to fiddle with the explosive device he was carrying, and the Tenth Doctor was forced to duck behind a clothes rack. He waited until the 9th incarnation had turned back to the direction they'd been coming from, before slipping out from behind the clothes rack and dashing down the corridor. He made his way through double-doors, glad to leave the 9th Doctor and the potential-paradox behind.

He could hear Rose talking from down the corridor, so he crept along until he reached a dark corner just beside where the Ninth Doctor would grab Rose's hand and say run, if his memory was completely correct. One of the Autons turned his way but he whipped out the sonic screwdriver and buzzed it in its plastic face, which caused it to turn its attention back to the scene before it.

The Tenth Doctor watched as Rose tripped over something in her haste to get away from the approaching Autons. She backed up against the wall, only a metre to the right of the Doctor who was crouching in the shadows. Rose cringed away from the Autons as they surrounded her and raised their arms.

The Doctor saw a Time Window flicker into existence only a step away from him. He straightened up and took the step towards the window, gaining the attention of an Auton. The Auton turned away from its previous target and moved towards the Doctor, placing its gun-hand at point-blank against the Doctor's head. It unknowingly stepped into the Time Window, which was beginning to flicker out of existence.

The Doctor struggled to throw off the Auton while watching as the Ninth Doctor appeared from nowhere and grabbed Rose's hand, too intent on the Autons and Rose to notice a future him only a metre away. The Time Window began seriously flickering out now, closing in around the Doctor and the Auton who began to melt with the sizzling force of the window. The Doctor waited for the landscape of the spaceship to appear around him but it didn't. The window just shrank until he couldn't move back into Henriks or forward into undoubtedly the spaceship either.

He was stuck.

* * *

No, I won't cut him a break. Live with it.

Oh and with that cliffhanger last chapter? Don't worry, I'm just warming up =D


	18. Oblivion

This chapter is kind of…dark, but given the bountifulness of reviews I got on Chapter 1 (you know the one I mean, the one with all the darkness stuff and the Doctor revisiting places) you like the dark stuff.

And don't burst my bubble telling me it's too dark, because ITS AWESOME, and is officially my new favourite chapter. And I know I said that about two chapters ago but oh well.

Oh and just a heads up, there'll be one or two more chapters and then I'm going away for three weeks to Canada/US on a hockey tour (field not ice) which will be awesome =D and I'm really looking forward to it.

And I won't have my laptop when I'm away so I won't be able to write anything, but I'll write when I get back and am not completely jetlagged.

Thanks to Sara, Shinku-Okami and MsTaeddy who were the only ones who reviewed last chapter

Without Emotion  
By LilyRoseXD

Sticks and stones may break you're bones  
But words can break you're mind  
As riddles without answers ask  
Why is life so unkind

Throw into the place with no sound  
No sight, no touch nor taste  
Devoid of colour and confused in time  
All sense had been erased

But being thrown back too a world of hurt  
Life and feeling in pityful lack  
Reminds us that emotion is just a knife  
Eventually, you'll be stabbed in the back.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. Neither do I own Abundance of Katherines or The Book Thief from which I have stolen quotes.

* * *

XVI

Oblivion

The Doctor hated lists. Especially mental lists. But he found himself making one as the Time Window flickered around him. One, would definitely be Rose. Two, would be the Time Window. Three, would be the 9th Doctor. Four, would be the Auton sizzling away and melting on his suit. The Auton had lost its signal to the Nestene Consciousness, and so therefore was just a normal shop window dummy, but that didn't make it any less annoying. It was bubbling and dripping on his suit and covering him in thick syrupy molten plastic.

However the Time Window was a much greater concern. There was a nothingness around him. No light, no dark, no depth, no form, or line. It was just a great big nothing. It wasn't a shade of white, or black, or any colour either. There was no light to it, and so there were no shadows, no darkness. And of course, there was nothing in the nothing. No forms or shapes, that he could reach out and touch. And he couldn't have reached out and touched them even if they were there, because it had no depth either. And trapped in the nothing there was him, the Time Window and the dummy. At least he could see them, which was a bit odd. For to see, you needed light to bounce off the object, and there was no light, but there was no dark either. And nor did he find it strange, or worrying, because this nothing wasn't _anything_, it was just empty. And as well as that, there was no time. He concluded, distantly, that this must be the Void.

The Void. The Void, with the endless tales told about surviving it. The Void, with its countless names. The Eternals called it the Howling, most just called it Hell. The Cult of Skaro, and their sphere, that survived it. The Daleks. It always returned to the Daleks. It always returned to _that_ time, that one time, when he'd lost. Maybe, in retrospect, that didn't matter. The countless times that he'd won would outbalance that surely. But it didn't. Some could have even said that he'd won that day. He'd pulled them back into Hell, with no fancy sphere to protect them from the Void's horrors. But he'd lost, really. It was like taking a pawn and then losing your queen. For he'd get them back, he'd bring all the Daleks that there are in the whole of creation back, if he had Rose with him to fight them.

The pain he felt inside him was so great and gaping. It was a newly healed scab that he'd just flung off, into the darkness and into the past. Being with Rose, albeit this younger Rose, had healed him a bit. Not entirely though, it had just healed the surface, the wound was still underneath. But now she was gone again from his life, and the surface of the wound was broken open and there was the gaping hole inside him again.

He was half tempted to try and get back. To turn around and go back to Rose's mundane everyday life which he'd grown so used to over the years. But deep down, he knew it wouldn't work. Rose wouldn't even be there anymore anyway. She'd be off, seeing the stars, and breathing alien air, while he'd be stuck down, pinned to the ground and to the Earth, and to his horribly boring life now. This must be what it felt like to be Jackie. Sitting there, with your chops and your work, ageing every day and losing one more tick in the clock, while she was soaring away up there, with breathless laughter and carefree days, with running and danger and excitement. And all you had were your chips.

There was no choice but to go forward, onwards. But to what? His TARDIS, yes. And his life. But was that it? He had to save Rose from the droids, but what would happen after that? Same old life, last of the Time Lords? He could travel the stars, yes, without anyone to pin him down again, but he felt like he'd seen it all before. Every planet was different, but they were all planets. Yes, they all had their different races, delicious cuisine, odd knick-knacks, but they all had war and conflict and disagreement. There would always be the age-old wars, that had been fought for so long, the soldiers didn't even know what they were fighting for anymore. And if that was all he had to go forward to, he wasn't sure he wanted to at all.

But there was always time. Time to figure it out, time to keep going. His time never ran out, but it always went too quickly. It sifted through his fingers like the sand in an hourglass. But now, there was no time. In the Void. He could stay here, for eternity, and it would all pass in the blink of an eye. There would be no more travelling, no more deaths, no more lost friends, no more running and no more time. And maybe that was for the best really. But what would he be, then? What's a Time Lord without Time?

But the droid was still melting on him, and the Time Window was shrinking and shrinking, and he knew, he had no choice but to go forward.

Yes, he _could_ stay here for eternity. But then what about Rose? He couldn't leave Rose to the fate of the droids, couldn't let them mess up her life so he never met her. But, then again, either way he lost. He could have time, but no Rose. And he could have no time, and no Rose either. But he had to choose time. Because with time, there was always a chance. Stuck in this nothing, forever, he had none.

He whipped out the sonic screwdriver, buzzing it quickly and the Time Window widened around him again, he took a deep breath, steadying himself, before time snatched him away from his paradisiacal oblivion.

He was shot out of the Time Window and landed on the cold concrete headfirst, all his breath going out in a whoosh. He sat up and was annoyed to see that the dummy had arrived with him, still in a molten mess, which was dripping down his face. He wiped some away with his sleeve, before raising his other arm to get the melted plastic off himself with the sonic screwdriver. He buzzed it for a few seconds, but instead of the plastic siphoning off like it was supposed to, it congealed.

He glared at the now-solid plastic that surrounded him and stuck him to the floor. He tried to shift his legs around to free them, but they were stuck firm. One of his arms was free of plastic and so therefore wasn't pinned down. He raised it to feel strands of his hair sticking up at all angles and stuck together in thick tufts. Luckily, he'd wiped most of it off his face before he stupidly tried to use to use the sonic screwdriver on it, so most of his face was alright.

He had no choice but to sit there, trapped by his own stupidity, until the droids found him.

"Ah, the Doctor, what a pleasant surprise!" exclaimed Nefaro – the droid leader- as he entered the room, sounding anything but pleased at the Doctor's arrival. The Doctor swivelled his head to glare at Nefaro instead of the solid plastic. Some other droids entered the room behind Nefaro, still looking as creepy as ever. Nefaro circled around until he was in front of the Doctor, gazing down at him with an expression he could only suppose was a smug smirk.

Nefaro looked the same as he had almost fifteen years ago. He still had the too perfect eyebrows, the same moulded nose, the possibly real eyeballs whizzing around in their sockets, and the slightly-too-messed-up brown hair wig, which the Doctor had been sure had been stitched together from multiple people's hair. He wore the same boring non-pinstriped suit, which didn't seem to fit very well over his clockwork body. The Doctor thought how boring it must be to look exactly the same fifteen years later, but then realised it probably hadn't been fifteen years on the ship.

"Fancy seeing you here," the Doctor replied sarcastically.  
"Now, now, don't be like that," scolded Nefaro. "Don't forget, Doctor, that I currently am hijacking the energy from your TARDIS. So, a little manners wouldn't go astray."  
"Now," Nefaro turned to the droids behind him, "take him away."

The Doctor had no choice but to sit there and be captured, the solidified plastic preventing him from escaping. But he had to escape eventually, he had to save Rose, and he had to get his TARDIS back.

*****************

The Doctor's wrists strained against the handcuffs. How many times had he been handcuffed lately? Too many times, it seemed. It was starting to get old, really. And yet he still hadn't figured out a foolproof way of getting out of them without his sonic screwdriver. He knew he couldn't always rely on the little gadget to save the day. The plastic incident proved that. Usually the sonic screwdriver just got him into more trouble later on. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. He could have laughed at that, it was only a few months ago he'd said the same thing to himself.

"_What did I tell you?! What did I say?! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE BEFORE I BASH YOUR BRAINS INTO NEXT YEAR!!!" There was a sort of pitiful yelping noise and scrambled footsteps past the cupboard, and then the roar of Jackie and she steamrolled passed the cupboard in pursuit of the future Doctor. _

_The real Doctor couldn't resist chuckling at how he'd got out of the frying pan and the future him had got into the fire. Then he laughed some more at his joke. Out of the frying pan. Ha ha. _

It was only a few months ago, back in the apartment, pinned down to the Earth, but pinned down with Rose. Which wasn't so bad. He remembered when they'd been on Krop Tor and he'd lost the TARDIS, it had been lost and they'd been no chance of finding it.

_The Doctor stared at the little plastic table between them. On the other side of the table, Rose was gazing up at the black hole through the glass of the ceiling. The glass ceiling was so thin, able to be shattered so easily, the only thing protecting them from the vastness and the power of space. _

"_I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home,"_ _the Doctor said, raising his head to look at Rose. She didn't turn her head.  
"Everyone leaves home in the end," she reassured him, though the Doctor noted the wetness in her eyes that shined with the light from the stars.  
"Not to end up stuck here," he replied, looking around at the run-down gritty space base around them.  
"Yeah," Rose drawled, "but stuck with you, that's not so bad," she said, still gazing into vastness of space.  
"Yeah?" the Doctor questioned.  
"Yes," Rose replied without hesitation, finally turning to him as she did so. The Doctor managed a small smile. _

The Doctor gritted his teeth to prevent the onslaught of memories from flooding him. He shuddered in a breath, eyes closing and screwing up but staying dry. He strained against the handcuffs again, dry sobs racking through his frame, now so fragile from all the bruises and injuries. But the bruises on his ribs, on his head, they would heal. But the bruises in his soul, they could not. He screamed, he yelled, wrenching his arms away from the post to which the handcuffs were strung around. They gave him no mercy.

He built himself into a rage, screaming and thrashing about, like an animal, like a wild thing. He wasn't even aware of if he was screaming words, or if it was just one long echoing cry. But finally, the scream died away, like a rolling coin that fell onto its side, suddenly starved of momentum. He collapsed, his wrists aching as they took most of his weight.

The dry sobs continued, but they made no sound. His stomach heaved with each one, his breathing jagged, his eyes shut tight against the world. He raised himself on wobbling legs, throwing himself away from the post, away from his past and the pain and all that was and towards all that would be. The handcuffs snapped, unable to take the force at which he grieved and raged. He stumbled forwards, stumbled like a drunken man, like the men on New Year's Eve, like his future self that he saw that night.

No droids came looking for him, but he wouldn't have cared if they did. He staggered out of the room, dazed and drained. Empty. Empty of soul and life and feeling. And maybe that was for the best really. These feelings, what did they do for him? Time after time, he'd won his battles with his feelings, being constantly scorned by the Daleks, those Daleks who'd been sent to Hell, to the Howling, but at such a large price it wasn't even worth it. All of them had always said the emotions would destroy him, and they were right, eventually. These emotions, they got him handcuffed, or tied up, or they made him mad, they killed him, in the end. Both physically, and emotionally. The emotions killed the emotions. The irony that was his existence.

He lurched down corridor after corridor. They blended together in their blandness, in their lack of emotion. They were shells, husks of rooms that could be full of life, full of vibrancy and colour, but they held no past, no feelings, and so they were nothing. Was that what he was? Nothing. Maybe he did need the emotions, to make him someone, but did he _want_ to be someone, if this was what it got him? Maybe he should be an empty room, a husk waiting for someone to lighten them up, but no one ever would, unless he got his TARDIS back.

He found it eventually. The old fashioned way too. He was too far gone to even attempt to find it with his psychic connection. It was just trial and error. Like his life, his existence, his being. Trying, failing, attempting, and then finding something. And then losing it. And starting all over again.

It keened and flickered as he approached. He ran towards it like a child would its mother. Helpless and afraid and so utterly dependent that it would have scared him if he'd had enough sense left to care about anything. He held a hand out, noticing for the first time the bloody gashes across his wrist from the handcuffs, but he ignored them, the physical pain they gave him was _nothing. _Nothing compared to what he'd felt before, in the past, and what he felt now. Physical pain was a joke. A bitter joke that fooled many. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie.

His hand grappled in the air, as he moved forward, no longer stumbling, but with such a blankness that most would have thought him a spirit of the dead. His hand suddenly connected with the rough wood of the door, and he was flooded. Flooded with his emotions and feelings, he knew who he was. He was alive. He was the Doctor. He saved planets and universes and he never stopped, he never looked back, and he wondered suddenly at what point he'd forgotten who he was. He breathed, he smelled, he tasted, he saw, and he felt. He felt everything, and he saw his surroundings: The TARDIS, the room, and the droids that seemed to appear from the folds in the walls.

They advanced towards him, Nefaro at their front, of course. Their blade hands shot out from their wrists, threatening him. But those blades were nothing. And he wondered how he'd ever let them scare him. They could only inflict physical pain, so they could do nothing to him. _Nothing._ But still they advanced, and then some droids without their wrist blades out reached out for him, with their plastic hands.

And then he was being ripped away. He was ripped away from the TARDIS and his life, and his way forward. There was nothing around him except his soul, and his conflictions. And all he knew was that he was screaming, a sound so terrible and lamenting he wanted to stop himself, but he couldn't. And he continued, it travelled on and on, it echoed through the ship and through the past, and into the future in which he'd never be. And then he was being thrown back into his life, through the Time Window, a life ring was floating on the surface of the world, and he grabbed it, and he came back to himself.

It was her that brought him back. And he found himself on that same carpet again, with the Time Window flickering out of existence behind him, and all he knew was that the droids had given him a gift and a curse. He was back in Rose's life, yes. But he had to share it. With himself.

He was hiding behind a chair when the past Doctor fell through a Time Window and landed on the same spot of carpet, looking around at his surroundings. The present Doctor glanced up at the calendar, though he already knew when he was. It was 1991 again. He was back.

And it was her that brought him back.

* * *

I think this chapter needs a bit of explanation.

Because at the end there, the Doctor is too out of it to really notice what's going on.

So random summary

-Is stuck in Void  
-Lands in spaceship.  
-Tries to sonic off melted dummy but fails and solidifies it.  
-Is found by droids.  
-Captured and handcuffed.  
-Tries to break out of handcuffs, going mental as well.  
-Looks for TARDIS to get out, still mental.  
-Finds TARDIS, puts hand on TARDIS and isn't mental.  
-Is found by droids, captured again, take him away from TARDIS, is mental again.  
-Thrown back into Rose's life, at the same point when he was thrown in the first time, way long ago, the end of Chapter 4, I think.  
-Hides and past Doctor appears. The one who's just arrived at the spaceship and just been captured by the droids for the first time ever. The Doctor from Chapter 5 is the past Doctor. Present Doctor is Chapter 17 (this chapter) Doctor.

RANDOM TRIVIA: I never once wrote 'The Doctor' when he was mad, because he didn't really know who he was, I always just wrote 'he'. It only says the Doctor when he remembers who he is. Yeah, I hope you noticed that.

Oh and yes, I bet you've figured it out. The Present Doctor is too out of it right now to think of it, but I bet you've thought of it. I won't say it though in case you haven't.

Oh and I do know that you're probably pissed for thinking that we were reaching the end there. Sorry. =D


	19. Replay: Part 1

WOO

DOUBLE CHAPTER

BE EXCITED EVERYONE

Yeah, so I was about a quarter way through this chapter when I realised it was going to be WAY LONG so for the benefit of your eyes and so you're not scrolling so much, **I've split it in half**, but am uploading all of it right now because I'm nice like that. (Eliza wanted me to keep half back and post it at midnight or pie time or some other awesome time but I can't be bothered)

And here's the bad news.

**I'm going away in ten days on a hockey tour in Canada/US and I'll be away for three or so weeks **without my laptop and probably no internet =( so no chapter while I'm away.

But I MIGHT write a chapter next weekend before I go away and either upload it then and there or upload it to Document Manager and then get Frani or Eliza to upload it for me while I'm away.

So I'm making up for that now with this massive double chapter.

Oh, you don't know how sick I got of writing 'the past Doctor' and 'the present Doctor'

Plus, Microsoft Word isn't happy with the two Doctors situation because I have to put past and future tenses in the same sentence. Which messes with its brain.

And I write down who reviews each chapter SO DON'T THINK I'M NOT WATCHING YOU

…yeah okay that was creepy.

But seriously, massive thanks to **SciFiGeek14** who's not only reviewed almost all the chapters of this story but my old stories as well =D. I feel like I should give you something…

And of course thanks to Sara for the above mentioned things as well

Paradoxical Effects  
by LilyRoseXD

Special effects of life  
If you can travel to and from  
The past and the present  
To the novelty we succumb

And then the novelty fades  
And we're left with the memories  
So we run away  
Face a few more enemies

But it will all catch up some eventually  
And that's when the trouble will start  
The time lines begin to be wibbly-wobbly  
And the gaps begin to part

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, or Harry Potter. Don't worry, you'll see.

THIS CHAPTER REQUIRES DECENT REMEMBRANCE OF CHAPTERS 5, 6 and 7, because hell no am I explaining everything in those chapters again.

**LOOK HERE!**

Yeah so you probably skipped over that author's note so…

**I'm going away in ten days on a hockey tour in Canada/US and I'll be away for three or so weeks**

* * *

XVIII

Replay: Part 1

The Doctor took deep breaths, finally coming back to himself. He was crouched behind an armchair in the living room, since the past Doctor would hide behind his favourite couch in a few minutes. Despite the fact he was without his TARDIS again, having been ripped away from it by the droids, he felt good to be back. He'd complained of not having enough time in his life, but now he'd been given more, and he wasn't going to waste it. He had fifteen years to live before he was dragged back to his old life, the last of the Time Lords, travelling the universe in his little blue box to escape the past. He had fifteen years to truly live, before the shadows descended on his soul again, the taunting ghosts of the past, the ones that pushed him towards a future he didn't desire to live. The ones that plucked his fingers off the cliff of reality, so he fell into the blackness of the abyss below.

There was a key in the lock. Then Jackie's voice, shrill and sharp, from the hallway. And as much as the present Doctor wanted to jump up and run before Jackie came into the living room, he knew he couldn't because the past Doctor would see him. He watched as the past Doctor jumped up and dived behind the couch, hitting his head on the wall behind it. The past Doctor let out a whimper of pain at the noise, and the present Doctor thought about the amount of times he'd been hit on the head in the past fifteen years. Jackie bustled into the kitchen, setting down the bags of groceries and unpacking them into the cupboards. Then the present Doctor watched as she opened a drawer, retrieved her trusted frying pan, and made her way into the living room, lightly banging the frying pan against her palm.

He knew there was no escape for him. He wanted to trust in the timeline, trust in the fact that Jackie hadn't seen the future him the first time around, so technically she shouldn't this time, but he couldn't. If he drew attention to himself, he would change this history, which he'd created, and create a paradox if the past Doctor saw his face. He would just have to wait until Jackie had chased the past Doctor out of the house before finding a new hiding spot for himself.

He watched as she threw the frying pan and listened to the whooshing sound it made as it flew through the air towards the back of the couch. Due to his position behind the armchair, the Doctor could see both Jackie and the back of the couch, and watched as the past Doctor dodged the frying pan not a second too soon. Then the past Doctor vaulted over the back of the couch, sprinting out of the room while Jackie charged the couch to get her frying pan back.

The present Doctor listened to the opening and closing of a door in the hallway, and had to smirk when he realised the past Doctor had run into Jackie's room, like _he_ had fifteen years ago. He was tempted to quit his hiding spot now and try and find a new hiding spot before Jackie re-entered the room, but didn't want to risk it. Best to just stay here until she chased the past Doctor out of the house and he launched himself through Rose's bedroom window.

He sat behind the armchair and waited for the past Doctor to get out of Jackie's room. He heard the floor being flung open, and then running footsteps, and then the sound of the towel cupboard doors opening and shutting if he really listened hard.

He'd never realised how long he had waited in the cupboard. An hour passed, and then two, and then it had been six or more and the past Doctor still hadn't come out. Jackie had seemed to have given up, but she would start at every noise and always kept the frying pan with her. The present Doctor wondered why she hadn't just called the police on him.

He saw Rose occasionally. Though he couldn't talk to her because she wouldn't know who he was until about three am tomorrow morning. So he waited behind the armchair, silently pleading with Jackie whenever she entered the living room to not come any closer. She never saw him, which was a relief. It was probably due to the fact that the armchair was one of those ones with fabric covering the legs of the armchair, so she couldn't see his feet.

And so he waited. Rose went to bed at about seven-thirty pm, which left him stuck in the living room with Jackie who was sitting on his favourite couch and watching tv show after tv show. Sitting next to her on the couch was the frying pan.

Jackie finally went to bed at ten or so, but she made sure to take the frying pan with her, just as the Doctor knew she would.

The Doctor judged that he had ample time to stretch his legs before the past Doctor would try and sneak into the kitchen for food later on. But also, there was something that was bothering him.

He got up from behind the armchair, stretching his arms above his head and then arching his back. He raised his feet one at a time and rotated his ankles, before heading into the kitchen.

He opened a cupboard, which was, just as he had thought, full of the newly bought groceries. He opened another, stacked with food as well. He didn't bother checking the fridge because he knew that his past self wouldn't either. The Doctor found himself relating his present situation to the end of the third Harry Potter book. When Harry had realised that his father wasn't coming to cast the Patronus to save him as he had thought and that it was he – Harry - all along that did. Here he was, the Doctor, going over this portion of time for the second time around, and all along he had thought that it was _Jackie_ that had emptied the food cupboards but left the pear to annoy him, but it hadn't been, it had been himself.

_Upon entering the kitchen, he saw a calendar and realised that he had no idea what year this was. The calendar revealed it to be 1991, four years after Rose was born and Pete died. He moved on to the cupboards, trying to find something eatable as silently as possible. After fruitless searching for several minutes, he'd found nothing in the cupboards but a pear sitting behind a jug. This made no sense because Jackie had brought in shopping bags when he'd first got here, but there was no food in the cupboards. He couldn't risk opening the fridge because as soon as he opened the fridge door, the light in the fridge would come on and reveal his position. He sighed and picked up the lone pear, glaring at it distastefully, still wondering where all the food was. He looked through the other cupboards and drawers as well, finding nothing but cutlery, pots and utensils. But strangely enough, there was no frying pan…_

_Then he realised he'd fallen right into Jackie's trap. _

_He smacked his palm against his forehead and groaned. Of course, why didn't he see it before? Everyone needs food eventually, she'd left him alone and waited for him to get hungry and come out of his hiding spot to scavenge food, but she'd moved it all so he couldn't get any even if she didn't discover him. So then why had she left the pear? She couldn't know that he didn't like pears before he even met her. That made no sense at all. So she must have just not seen it because the jug would have obscured it from view. But to him, it made the cruel trick even crueller. _

He wanted to laugh out loud at this revelation, but he didn't since it would undoubtedly bring Jackie to him, so he set to work emptying the cupboards. He didn't really have anywhere to hide them so he just shoved all the jars and boxes and containers into a coat pocket, promising to replace them later on. He emptied the fruit bowl into his pocket as well, but left a pear and a banana. He placed the pear behind the jug in the food cupboard where he had found it the first time around, and then got the banana and wedged it between two cookbooks on a shelf near the door.

He exited the kitchen, not bothering to go back to his hiding spot but going straight to Pete's room. This was risky, with Jackie asleep in her room not a step or two away and he having no idea how much time it was until the past Doctor got out of the towel cupboard and went into the kitchen. He managed to retrieve the sonic screwdriver from his suit pocket and cursed in Gallifreyian when its buzzing sounded out against the silence in the apartment. He waited with bated breath, but Jackie didn't appear screaming like a banshee with the frying pan so he opened the door to Pete's room and slipped inside.

He immediately relaxed when he was in there, knowing that it would be a few days before the past Doctor had the sense to try and hide in here. And until then, it would be his.

He brushed the dust off the bed, leaving it collected in a small pile in the corner of the room, he promised himself he'd clean it up later, but he never did.

He unpacked the food from his coat pocket, spreading it out onto the bed. He only took a few handfuls of the different types of foods before him, as he didn't want Jackie noticing that he was taking food from her cupboards. He placed his chosen food back into his coat pocket, save a banana which he ate on the spot, and then gathered the remaining food in his arms and setting it down by the door for him to replace in the cupboards later.

He meant to settle down on the bed and try and get some sleep as he was tired after everything that had happened recently, but he didn't. Instead he got up, shoved all the food he was going to put back in the cupboards into his other coat pocket, and went back to the living room. He settled himself behind the couch this time, knowing that his past self wouldn't try and hide there but run straight for the apartment's door. And so he waited.

It was only an hour or so later that he heard the footsteps. Had he really been that loud? No wonder Jackie had heard him 'sneaking' about. Then he heard himself trip over something in the dark and curse in Gallifreyian, and he tried not to laugh. He listened to the footsteps as they made their way into the kitchen and then stopped in front of the cupboards. He peeked up over the top of the couch, looking through the space in the kitchen's wall to see his past self glowering at the lone pear in the dim light.

Then the present Doctor turned and saw Jackie tip-toeing into the living room, severe look plastered on her face and frying pan banging against her palm again. He ducked down behind the couch, but he doubted that Jackie had seen him. She made her way to the kitchen, raising the frying pan above her head and letting her face adopt an insane smile.

The present Doctor watched as the past Doctor chewed his lip, glancing towards the banana behind Jackie's head that the present Doctor had placed there not an hour or two earlier. Then Jackie's frying pan came out of nowhere towards him and the Doctor watched as his past self panicked and threw the pear at it. The pear caused the frying pan to flip over on itself before it continued on its flight towards the past Doctor, hitting him full in the chest and causing him to fly backwards into the kitchen counter behind him.

The past Doctor was doubled over in pain, but he managed to find the remains of the pear and then threw it at Jackie's face and ran past her, grabbing the banana on the way. The present Doctor watched as the pear connected with Jackie's face with a wet splat and saw her insane smirk change to one of deep hatred.

She wiped her eyes with the backs of her palms, before reclaiming the frying pan and dashing out of the kitchen after the past Doctor.

The present Doctor took this opportunity to replace all the food in the cupboards, keeping an ear out for Jackie as he did so. He didn't really have time to arrange it all exactly as it had been, so he just emptied it all out into the cupboards and hoped that Jackie wouldn't notice the rearrangement of the food.

He heard the front door slam, and Jackie's footsteps came stomping up the hallway. He was frozen in shock for a second, but she didn't come into the living room or the kitchen, and instead went to the bathroom to presumably wash the pear off her face.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and made his way back to Pete's room.

It was three-thirty in the morning when Rose woke him up. He started awake when he heard her loud shout, "NO!" He groaned and turned over, knowing this was his cue to get up but not wanting to. He eventually sat up, shrugged his coat on, and stood at the door. He waited for Jackie to thunder towards Rose's room, and then waited until she went back to her bed.

He slipped out of Pete's room, remembering to buzz the sonic screwdriver at the lock to lock it, before sneaking down the hallway and around a corner towards the bathroom. He stood opposite the open door of the bathroom and leaned against the wall. Soon enough, the past Doctor emerged from Rose's room holding a flowery teapot with an equally flowery and frilly apron on over his pinstriped suit, and the most un-manly bonnet to ever exist covering his hair. A few unruly strands were sticking out from under the edges of the bonnet, only making him look more ridiculous.

The past Doctor tip-toed to the bathroom, holding the plastic teapot in both hands and muttering to himself. The present Doctor held back his laughter, knowing it was too soon for him to reveal himself.

The present Doctor remembered the exact point at which he had to laugh, _From behind him, he heard a snort of laughter and he whipped his head up, looking in the mirror to see nothing behind him but a corner of a coat disappearing around a corner. He shook his head again, this time to clear the hallucinations he must be having. Delusional from lack of sleep, he supposed. _

He waited until the past Doctor was filling the teapot up with water from the tap in the bathroom, before letting the snort of laughter escape him and slipping around the corner of the hallway. He sighed in relief, knowing he could go back to sleep now that he'd kept the timeline from collapsing.

This time it was Jackie that woke him up. Her footsteps thundered down the hallway like a stampede of elephants, and he whimpered and pulled the pillow over his head to drown it out. He knew what it must be; it was now that Jackie discovered the past Doctor in Rose's room after the tea party. It was when he'd escaped through Rose's window, hidden behind some bins and then been found and arrested by the police. He removed the pillow for a second and listened to find that Jackie was now outside chasing the past Doctor down the stairs. He turned over and went back to sleep.

*********

After catching up on some much-needed sleep, the Doctor became bored. He couldn't go and talk to Rose because it would mess up the timeline, his past self was locked away in a cell and wouldn't be getting out for another five or so hours and Jackie was hogging the living room watching tv and making it impossible for him to sneak some food from the kitchen.

He was distantly aware that this sort of life wasn't really living and wasn't much better that moping around on the TARDIS having nothing to do and not going anywhere, but he didn't care much anymore. All he was really doing was sleeping, which was something he didn't need to do that often anyway but what else was he supposed to do? During the time he wasn't sleeping he was either comparing this life to his life on the TARDIS and trying to decide which was a better one, or he was tinkering with knick-knacks and reading Harry Potter.

His stomach growled loudly, and he started. He picked up his coat and rummaged in a pocket but drew out nothing. He was out of food. He poked his head out of the door to find Jackie still glued in front of the tv and opted to go out and get food instead of trying to sneak some from the kitchen.

* * *

I know this isn't really a good point to split the chapter up, but whatever, just go and read Part 2.


	20. Replay: Part 2

Massive thanks to **SciFiGeek14** who's not only reviewed almost all the chapters of this story but my old stories as well =D. I feel like I should give you something…

And of course thanks to Sara for the above mentioned things as well

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, or Harry Potter. Don't worry, you'll see.

THIS CHAPTER REQUIRES DECENT REMEMBRANCE OF CHAPTERS 5, 6 and 7, because hell no am I explaining everything in those chapters again.

**LOOK HERE!**

Yeah so you probably skipped over that author's note so…

**I'm going away in ten days on a hockey tour in Canada/US and I'll be away for three or so weeks**

Just a Box  
by LilyRoseXD

Empty and weightless  
A soul torn too many times  
Shut out from everything  
Running from countless crimes

He'd always been scared  
To see what he'd caused  
To look back on what was  
To remember the wars

He runs out of hope  
And runs from the doubt  
But when he returns  
Time will almost be out

* * *

XVIII

Replay: Part 2

He really wanted to take Rose with him going to get food, but then she'd ask questions about how he'd got out of jail so quickly and sooner or later he'd be found out by Jackie before the past Doctor came back and the timeline would be re-written, possibly causing a paradox. So he went by himself.

He went to the supermarket and bought himself several bunches of bananas, a dozen or so jars of marmalade, plus some 'real' food as 20 year old Rose would have put it if she caught him dipping his finger in a marmalade jar in the TARDIS kitchen. That was all he'd intended to get, and was walking back to the apartment with his purchases safely stored in a coat pocket when he walked past the fish and chip shop.

He wasn't the biggest fan of local earth fish. Personally, he preferred a truly exquisite dish from the planet Drafgk where they wrapped a certain type of fish called a Goolak in their local kind of bread and grill it on a super-heated rock that's been coated with an oily savoury sap, accompanied with a vegetable that resembled a potato but tasted like a spicy carrot.

He stopped outside the fish and chip shop, chewing his bottom lip, a habit he'd picked up from 20 year old Rose. The other people walking on the pavement split into two groups and flowed around him and the wind wafted the scent of the salt and oil towards him, but he couldn't smell it, he could only smell apple grass.

_The zooming ships and hover cars flew overheard, and this would have rustled their hair except the wind took care of that all on its own. The air was fresh, and the water was an impossible shade of blue and streams of sunshine beamed down from between gaps in the clouds.  
"Not bad," nodded the Doctor, hair flying everywhere. "Not bad at all."  
"That's amazing," agreed Rose as the vividly coloured ships continued to soar past and the bright metal city gleamed in the distance, all spires and towers and windows.  
"I'll never get used to this," Rose said, shaking her head and trying to keep her hair under control. "Never. Different ground beneath my feet," she jumped up and down on the grass, "different sky…what's that smell?" she asked the Doctor suddenly.  
He bent down and plucked a blade of grass from the ground. "Apple grass," he answered, showing it to her.  
"Apple grass," she echoed, grinning.  
"Yeah, yeah," he nodded, turning back to the city.  
"It's beautiful," said Rose, and the Doctor didn't really know if she meant the apple grass or the view. "Oh, I love this," she was still grinning, and the Doctor turned back to her as she weaved her arm through his.  
"Can I just say, travelling with you, I love it."  
"Me too," the Doctor grinned._

The Doctor entered the fish and chip shop.

He must have looked an odd sight, standing there in the bustling steamy shop waiting for his chips and breathing in ever so deeply, inhaling the oily greasy smell that was rich in the little shop. As soon as he'd paid for his chips, he brought them up to his face and sniffed them as well, the scent so deep and strong it filled his soul, covering the freshly ripped-off scab of a wound in his soul.

He exited his shop, slipping one box of chips into his pocket and keeping the other one in his fingers, letting them be coated with the oil that dripped from the bottom of the box. He walked and walked and remembered.

_She was on her third trip around the school when she saw the Doctor sitting on one of the benches and smiling at her. Rose glanced around her, there were no Year 7s around. She quickly ran over to the Doctor with her empty paper bag scrunched in one hand and her laptop bag hanging off her shoulder and flung herself down on the bench, reaching over to give him a hug. __With the arm that wasn't hugging Rose, the Doctor reached into his pocket and drew out an oily box._

_"Chips?"_

He found himself at the park. Technically, it wasn't really a park, just a stretch of grass and a few trees dotted here and there outside the Powell Estate but it served him well enough. He ignored a park bench, instead sitting on the grass that wasn't apple and opening up the greasy box and setting it down. He stared at it for a moment, thinking about how his ninth self and Rose had walked on this grass, but not yet. This grass could really only be a memory, for they hadn't pushed it into the ground with their shoes yet, walked over it, hadn't not looked back to see if it had sprung back up or not, this grass shouldn't be a memory for him yet. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. Sometimes he wondered if it might be better if everything happened to him in the right order, but that would mean getting out of Rose's life, and he certainly wasn't ready for that yet.

The chips were cooling from the air, so he popped one in his mouth quickly. They weren't that great as chips go. There were better chips out there, and he'd most certainly tasted better chips himself, but it wasn't their perfectness he needed, what he needed was their memories. To suck the chips dry of all the symbolism that they held for him, to draw it all in and drink it all up and fill himself so he might think himself of some substance, might think he had depth.

All too soon the chips were gone. The smell lingered in his nose and mouth though, for which he was thankful. But now, there was nothing but the box left. The greasy salty box. He'd ripped the chips away from the box like they'd ripped her away from him. She was the chips, a substance, filled with something, while he was the box. He was the empty empty box, which would sit there and wait. Wait and wait until he had his chips back, something that gave him a meaning, a purpose, what was a box without something to fill it? The box was nothing. It was what was in the box that was important.

But he had nothing inside him. There was only the wound. And that was just emptiness. It was an empty gaping hole that was unable to be labelled with just a single emotion, since you can't feel emptiness. And where the emptiness was, the chips should have been. But there were no chips left. Inside him, or out.

He picked up the empty box, couldn't stand to throw it away as everyone always does, so instead he pocketed it.

He made his way up to the apartment, quietly slipping through the front door, able to hear the tv still blaring and trusting that Jackie was still parked in front of it. He made a detour on the way to Pete's room, silently reaching into his pocket, drawing out the other box of chips which he'd pocketed earlier and placing them on the floor just outside Rose's room. He knocked once and then went back to Pete's room before Rose could see him. He couldn't mess with the timeline too much, but surely it'd bend around this little box of chips, just this once.

****************

It was a day or so later that the past Doctor came back. The present Doctor had been lounging around in Pete's room unable to tinker or read Harry Potter, only able to think about boxes and chips, chips and boxes. He was caught by surprise, only remembering that the past Doctor would hide from Jackie in Pete's room when he heard the past Doctor running up the stairs towards the apartment.

The present Doctor was forced to shove all his possessions into his coat pockets and then to collect the dust he'd left in a small pile when he'd first come into Pete's room a few days ago. He spread the dust onto the bed, trying to make the room look as untouched as possible, but the footsteps were getting closer to the front door of the apartment so he was forced to leave it and hope the past Doctor wouldn't pay that much attention to the dust. He quickly buzzed the lock on the door, and then buzzed it shut again afterwards and then he made his way to Rose's room, thankful she was asleep, before silently pushing open her window and managing to pull himself through it without waking her up.

He closed Rose's window and waited until he heard the past Doctor slam the front door of the apartment before setting off to the only other place he knew where he could stay.

**************

The drunk's apartment was just as he remembered it. Dank, dirty and dark. The little light that filtered through from a grimy window only revealed the dampness of the walls, the streams of dust that swirled around him. He sighed and closed his eyes, letting another memory play itself out in his head.

_The dust was thicker here, shifting through the air and stirring up off the furniture that he came close to. He stood in the centre of the room, dust swirling around him like fog as he turned slowly on the spot and regarded the room in which Rose had spent so much of her childhood. His eyes were immediately drawn to the photos, and in one long stride he was in front of them. He smiled to see pictures of Jackie and Pete, along with a baby Rose, even one of their wedding day before they had got to the church, where Pete had died in that car accident. He saw pictures of a baby Rose, a toddler Rose, Rose as a kid and as a teenager. Even some pictures of Mickey were there. And there was one of him._

_It was from last Christmas, his only real Christmas. There was him and Rose laughing together at some long forgotten joke with those daft paper crowns on their heads sitting at the table eating Christmas dinner. Jackie must have taken the picture when they weren't paying attention. She'd probably guessed that they would have been irritated to find out they were having their picture taken, and they would have been, but now, now he was so thankful that she'd taken it._

_He swallowed loudly and stared at the picture a moment longer, before picking it up and slipping it into his bigger-on-the-inside pocket along with all the pictures of Rose. Rose would have wanted him to take them and put them somewhere in the TARDIS. On the console maybe, or one of the walls, or in her room, but little did she know they would probably end up in his. _

He sighed and set himself down on the floor in the hallway, not even wanting to explore the other rooms of the apartment. This was the third time he'd ended up in this place, but he still had no wish to tidy it up and claim it as his own. He remembered when he'd first discovered the apartment.

_He walked past more apartment doors trying to find a place to hide before finding one door ajar. He pushed it open and stepped inside a few steps, stopping for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He listened but could hear no one. _

"_Hello?" he called out into the darkness of the hallway. "Is anyone here?"_

_He received no reply so he went around to each room of the house, making sure it was completely empty before he relaxed slightly and went to close the front door so he could hide here from Jackie until the morning. _

The Doctor was startled from his reminiscence when he heard footsteps coming towards the front door of the apartment. It could be the drunk that owned the apartment, but something about the uniformity of the steps told the Doctor otherwise. Jack had discovered this place too. Jack had told him that he'd found it once, but when? Was it now? The Doctor finally realised how desperate he was to talk to Jack, to get Jack to find him a better place to live. This wasn't living. He might as well be back on the TARDIS if he was going to live in a drunk's apartment.

Suddenly, the Doctor realised. He couldn't talk to Jack. Not yet. It was too soon. Much too soon. This wasn't the Jack who'd rescued him from Jackie the other day, this was the Jack from fifteen years ago, one who had no idea who he was and probably wouldn't believe him for some time yet. He scrambled up all too easily, not having been too comfortable sitting in the damp hallway. He edged into another room of the apartment with just his head poking out the door, trusting the darkness to hide him.

It was Jack. The front door was pushed open and there he was, same coat and haircut with the Vortex Manipulator strapped to his wrist, and his face, which was only able to convey two expressions: a teasing, joking one or one that was deadly serious. Right now it was deadly serious. The Captain entered the apartment, calling out against the silence but receiving no answer. Satisfied with its state of abandonment, he closed the door behind him and marched up the hallway.

He passed right by the Doctor, who'd pulled back as he walked by, and kept walking up to the room at the end of the hallway. The Doctor checked that Jack was occupied exploring that room before sneaking down the hallway and quietly slipping out the front door.

He sighed, both a sigh of disappointment and one of relief. He was disappointed that his hiding spot had been stumbled upon so quickly but was also glad he wouldn't be staying there. He made his way back up to the apartment with tired steps, he'd been sleeping so much lately he'd been tireder than usual. He needed to get back into his old sleep cycle, but he couldn't see the point anymore.

Maybe it was the memories and not the running and hiding that had tired him out. They were so demanding. Appearing before his eyes in crystal sharp focus, sometimes playing out like a scene in a book or a movie, sometimes just a jumble of feelings mixed in with snapshots his eyes had taken. Sometimes he wanted to bash his head against a wall, or Jackie's frying pan, so he wouldn't have such a good memory. Sometimes he wanted to be more human. He wanted to be able to forget. But alas, he could forget nothing. All his memories were there, straight and ordered, the complete opposite of his life.

He couldn't drink his troubles away. He couldn't have short-term solutions. There was only one thing that veiled his memories and allowed him to laugh, to look to the future without collapsing in on himself. But he was just a box.

The only place he could think of to hide was the towel cupboard. It was better than nowhere after all. He managed to hoist himself up onto the shoulder high shelf once again. Groaning when more memories flashed through his mind. He attempted to ignore them. But it was fruitless.

The memories brought him back to the boxes and the chips. And they in turn, made him think about his life and the TARDIS and whether he had a way forward anymore. It was fear that had always driven him, driven him onwards, he'd always been too scared to stop, too scared to look back and see what he'd brought upon the world. But now he was out of sight, out of mind, out of time itself. His past couldn't find him here. But he only had fifteen years. And then he'd have to go back. Yes, he wanted to save Rose, but saving Rose now would end this blissful oblivion from his life that he was experiencing. He'd save Rose from the droids later, he promised himself. But now, now he would live.

* * *

Selfish Doctor much? Ha ha.

I have a question for you people…

Would you like me to do a short explanation in dash-point form at the end of every chapter?

Or just the confusing ones, (ie almost all of them)

Thanks to all reviews, keep it up =D


	21. Doubt

IT'S BACK!

Yeah, it's been way too long and that's kind of evident with the first little bit of this chapter, so I'm sorry about that but I was kind of just warming up there.

Hopefully the rest of the chapter makes up for it.

And the ball is like, actually rolling now, which is awesome.

And I thought it was about time I had a chapter name you actually know the meaning of without having to look it up.

Yeah so, my trip was fantastico and everything, but I'm sure you don't really want to hear about it and would rather just read the chapter.

Plain Sight  
by LilyRose XD

Everything falls to dust  
Past and present become blurred  
And the future lies in the dark  
Somehow already having occurred…

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who or much else really.

LOOK HERE

Sorry, should have mentioned this chapter is set from the year 1993 through to 2005

* * *

XIX

Doubt

The Doctor had promised himself that he would live, but it certainly didn't feel like living when his alarm went off at some ungodly hour. He turned over and got a mouthful of carpet. Groaning, he sat up, massaging the crick in his neck. He rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes and then ran his fingers through his hair. If it weren't for his alarm clock, he never would have known it was morning due to the lack of light filtering through the grubby windows. He looked back at the small square of carpet that acted as his pillow, and then at his wooden floorboard bed. He sighed and got up, brushing the dust from his suit and making his way out of the drunk's apartment, which had become his new hiding spot.

The past Doctor had Pete's room. His past self had almost captured the Doctor when he'd been lounging around in there when the past Doctor came back from his time being arrested by the police. The Doctor had come here, but then Jack had stumbled upon the drunk's apartment as well, and so, defeated, the Time Lord had ended up hiding in the towel cupboard in Rose's apartment.

Soon enough, he'd realised it wasn't an ideal spot to hide, and only used it when he needed to be in the apartment itself. Jack came to the drunk's apartment occasionally, but not often enough that the Doctor considered moving out of it. It was the only place he had.

And what a place it was. With the swirling streams of dust, the grubby windows and broken floorboards. The amber beer bottles that were strewn here and there throughout the place.

The Doctor exited the drunk's apartment, making his way up several flights of stairs before creeping into Rose's apartment through her bedroom window. He made his way to the towel cupboard, and hid while the sounds of Rose's and Jackie's argument drifted through the hallway from the living room.

"Rose, come on, we're going to be late."  
"Doc wouldn't let you do this to me."  
"Doc?" questioned Jackie. "Who's Doc?"  
"No one," Rose lied quickly, horrified at herself for letting that slip.  
"Rose, is Doc that toy bear of yours which you wouldn't tell me where you got?"  
"Um…yeah. That's Doc, Mummy."  
"Right. Now here's your lunch, sweetheart."  
"Look, Rose. It's Winne the Pooh. You like Winnie the Pooh."  
Rose said nothing.  
"Come on, we're going to be late."  
"I'm not going!" Rose shouted at her mother.  
"You have to!" Jackie screamed back, momentarily losing her composure.  
"Come on," Jackie said in a softer, calmer voice.

The Doctor listened to Jackie's footsteps drawing nearer as she entered the hallway and made her way to her own room to get ready to take Rose to her first day of school. Rose's footsteps padded softly to her own room, and the Doctor listened to them fade before he entered the living room himself, knowing his past self was behind the couch.

_The Doctor fell back into the space between the wall and the back of the couch, leaning against the upholstery and waiting. He'd learned from experience not to come out of his hiding spot yet.  
While he waited he listened to the sounds of Jackie bustling around the rest of the house, but he couldn't hear much of Rose and guessed that she was keeping out of her mother's way in her room.  
He heard a low deep sigh and a sort of chuckle as well.  
He got up on his knees and peeked over the edge of the couch to see the edge of a coat swishing and disappearing around a corner.  
Jackie didn't have a coat like that. Neither did Rose._

The present Doctor allowed himself the low deep sigh and the chuckle he was supposed to utter at this point in time. He made his way to the door, then disappeared around it making sure his coat swished as much as possible in the non-windy hallway.

He retreated to the drunk's apartment, trying to remember the next point in time he had to be somewhere to maintain the continuity of the timeline.

*********

The drunk's apartment reflected his mood. Or maybe it created it. Maybe the drabness and oppressing atmosphere caused him to constantly run through past memories. Or maybe it was his blanket of suppressive feeling, of numbness, that had created the drunk's apartment in the first place. Maybe it was really a palace, and yet he, he had ruined it, as he had ruined so many lives.

He began to doubt this theory of his when he realised something that drew him out from under this blanket, into the light of the future and the light of hope and forwardness. He'd get to talk to Rose. He knew he'd talk to her one last time. Even if he was never allowed to again. Because there was that one time. On New Year's. Maybe that's why that Doctor from New Year's had looked in pain. Because it was the last time. It could be the last time he ever talked to her.

The Doctor became confused with himself. He was looking to the future, to this meeting, but if it was the last time he'd ever talk to her. Ever talk to anyone. Ever be touched upon by the mundane and ordinary which he so seemed to crave, then maybe he didn't want to talk to her. His time here had changed him. He was more selfish. Less giving. Thought twice before throwing himself into the line of danger and the path of the present. He preferred the path of the future, in which he knew he would go on, for better or for worse. Didn't want to end what he had.

He remembered how, in the Void, only a short time ago, he'd thought about just giving up, about never seeing Rose or the TARDIS again and letting the little flame of hope that was shielded by his emotional walls go out. But he had pressed to the future. And that meant he'd have to face it. He'd have to face the end.

If it was the end, then it was approaching faster than he could have ever believed. Yes, a few years were a short time to a Time Lord, but even though he seemed to cling onto every second, to beg it not to leave him yet, they slipped through his fingers like the sand in an hourglass.

_There was darkness. Some could say there was nothing, but even darkness was something. Darkness was safe. You knew what you were in for, it there was light, the Doctor would have suspected a hidden danger, but darkness revealed it all to him. _

_There was a voice. Crackling and rough, as jagged and jaded as Time itself._

"_The ending approaches."_

_There was a flash and his past selves all appeared, stretching into the distance, which existed and didn't exist in the darkness. Rose flickered into being beside the past selves of the Doctor. There were many selves of her as well, all at different ages, but the oldest Rose was only twenty-one, the real Rose._

"_People and planets and stars will become dust, and the dust will become atoms…"_

_His past selves exploded into jagged pieces, the Roses shattered into shards._

"…_and the atoms will become…nothing."_

_And then there was nothing, nothing at all._

And the Doctor awoke, screaming harsh unworldly cries and clawing in the air at his future and at his unknown fate and wishing he hadn't just accepted it.

He shivered, although he was not cold, on the drunk's apartment's floor, his first nightmare in so so long disrupting him, frightening him. It was only a few hours ago that he'd thought about his future and the end of him and now, he wished he hadn't, because he was sure that was what had brought about the nightmare.

********

It was later, much later, that he was in the courtyard of the Powell Estate on New Year's Eve. Shivers still ran through his body like electric currents, and his breaths were shaky and jagged. He was aware of the hairs standing up on his arms, even with his coat shrugged over his shoulder, and he was desperately trying to convince himself that his condition was just so because of the cold and the snow around him. But deep down, right deep inside the festering wound inside him he knew that it wasn't.

He had situated himself in the shadows where he remembered that he should be. He looked around at the swirling snow and knew that this was the end, even though it hadn't been confirmed by anyone. He just knew. This would be the very last time he'd see Rose, talk to Rose, the very last time he'd talk to anyone. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, but something would, of that he was certain.

In fact, now that he thought about it, the nightmare he'd had confirmed it. He remembered how confused he'd been at the state this future Doctor was in. Pained and paled. The nightmare had weakened him. With each visit, it stole some of his being, some of his future and his hope, until he'd have nothing left but an empty shell of himself, without feeling and emotion.

But then, then there was a whirring. A whirring and a flurry so familiar he felt a physical ache inside him upon hearing it. The calm falling of the snow was disrupted. It was hurtled in all directions, and if they'd been leaves they would have been blown away by an unseen wind. And then it appeared. In full blue health. There was the TARDIS.

Words tried to form themselves on his lips, but what he would say, he had no idea. Whether English or Gallifreyian, or if in some other language, he was even less certain. All he managed was a sort of croak, a rough noise at the back of his throat. He was about to rush to it, his shivers and haunting memories of the nightmare and of his past forgotten. But then he heard the oh so familiar creaking of the door.

He had no choice but to bolt to the other side of the courtyard, smuggling himself into the depths of the shadows to the left of the TARDIS. He watched silenced and frozen, as he himself emerged from the TARDIS, stole across the courtyard, not even noticing the footprints the present Doctor had just made and situated himself in the shadows where the present Doctor had previously been.

The Doctor had been certain, _certain_, that this was the time. That he was the Doctor who was supposed to talk to Rose now. But there were three of him, apparently. But he had no time to dwell more on his confused thoughts as Rose and Jackie were making their way into the courtyard, and the past Doctor was trailing further behind in the shadows at the edge of the courtyard.

"Late now, I've missed it," Rose said to Jackie. "Midnight. Mickey's gonna be calling me everything, this is your fault."  
They walked past the TARDIS without glancing in its direction.  
"No it's not. It's Jimbo. He said he was gonna give us a lift and then he said his axle broke. I can't help it," Jackie retorted fiercely.  
"Get rid of him, Mum, he's useless," Rose replied.  
"Listen to you, with a mechanic."  
The Doctor watched as his past self retreated further into the shadows as the two women passed him.  
Jackie stopped walking. "Be fair though, my time of life, I'm not gonna do much better."  
"Don't be like that," Rose patted Jackie's shoulder and tucked a strand of Jackie's hair behind her ear. "Never know, could be someone out there."  
"Maybe," Jackie said doubtfully. "One day." Rose's face lit with a small smile.  
"Happy New Year!" Jackie suddenly exclaimed.  
"Happy New Year!" Rose replied and Jackie hugged her daughter.  
Rose drew back. "Don't stay out all night," she told her mother, walking over to the stairs.  
"Try and stop me!" Jackie replied, going off in the other direction.

The present Doctor heard the cry of pain once again from the future Doctor lurking in the shadows. Their conversation played out again exactly how it had happened the first time, exactly how he remembered it from the vantage point of the past Doctor.

"You right mate?" Rose asked the future him.  
"Yeah." He managed to reply, leaning on the wall behind him.  
"Too much to drink?" Rose grinned knowingly.  
"Something like that," the other Doctor nodded.  
There was a pause.  
"Maybe it's time you went home," Rose said, and the past Doctor smiled sadly, while the present Doctor just watched with a frown.  
"Yeah…" the future him replied vaguely, the same sad smile just visible on his shadowed face.  
"Anyway," Rose smiled, "Happy New Year!"  
"And you," he replied.  
Rose turned away and continued her walk towards the stairs. The future Doctor got a bit of a desperate look on his face.  
"What year is this?" he asked suddenly.  
Rose turned back, surprised, but then smiled as she took in his question.  
"Blimey, how much have you had?"  
The future Doctor tilted his head to the left and back again and made a non-committal sort of noise.  
Rose looked thoroughly amused, "2005. January the First."  
"2005," the future Doctor echoed.  
Rose nodded, readjusting her crossed arms.  
"Tell you what," the future Doctor said, smiling slightly. "I bet you're gonna have a really great year."  
"Yeah?" Rose grinned.  
The future Doctor smiled properly now. A smile that was both sorrowful and joyful and the past Doctor couldn't help but copy his expression.  
Rose nodded again and turned away, before turning back and grinning widely.  
"See ya," was all she said before she walked back to the stairs and disappeared.

The shivers and convulses returned as soon as Rose was gone, and the present Doctor lost awareness of his surroundings as the questions circled in his head and the nightmare played itself out in the background, the Roses shattering in his mind's eye.

He was confused in the truest sense of the word. He'd thought this was the end of him, the last time he'd talk to Rose, but there was another Doctor who saw it fit to come back to his place and talk to Rose himself, even with hundreds of other moments to choose from. Why would he do that? There were already two of him in this moment, why add another? What could make him tread so dangerously on the carpet of Time? And would it slip out from underneath him? Why was the TARDIS so healthy looking, when the future Doctor looked so sick? Sick at heart and mind, but with no physical symptoms.

The future Doctor looked tired, looked old, but he couldn't be too old unless he managed to stay out of trouble and not regenerate for a few centuries. And he didn't have a strong enough mind for that. He wasn't able to stop himself from going forth and saving a planet or a person to try and redeem himself, but from what? He wondered. Was there something he'd done much earlier in his life that had caused him to begin trying to redeem himself in the first place that he'd now forgotten about? And if so, why had he forgotten? He began to wonder whether he was the Doctor anymore, when so much of his past had become hidden to him recently. Was he only Doc now? Was he only Doc?

He came back to himself to find that both the future Doctor, along with his TARDIS, and the past Doctor had gone. It was only him left. He was left wondering why. Some part of him longed to go after the past Doctor, to ask him about himself, about the things he'd forgotten, for them to put their brilliant heads together to work it out. Another part of him wanted to go after the future Doctor. To completely disobey the laws of time and demand to get answers of his future off him. He wanted to know the end of a story before it even finished. Maybe even before it had even begun. Had he really changed that much that he would do that? Would disobey Time just to get answers which he didn't even deserve.

But then he realised something. Something he should have realised a long time ago. Something to bring him back to himself and to delay the ending of his story. He would meet Rose again in the future. He had no idea how far off that was, whether he'd have gotten out of her childhood first or whether he wouldn't and some cruel twist of fate would throw him back into this moment again. But he would meet her. And until then, he couldn't die. It was no matter what happened after he'd seen Rose, but up to that moment, he wouldn't be in such danger so that he would regenerate or just die completely.

For once, he could look to the future and know that he had a place there.

* * *

I reckon this chapter needs another explanation. I know most of you said you only wanted explanations for the confusing chapters, but I think this chapter falls under that category with the three Doctors and all that.

- Doctor is hiding in drunk's apartment because the past Doctor is in Pete's room (see previous chapter)

- Has to let past Doctor see his coat again because he remembers it happening and if he didn't there would be a paradox.

- He's all sad because the past Doctor can hang out with Rose and he can't.

- He becomes excited/sad/confused because he remembers that he's going to talk to Rose on New Year's Eve, but he thinks that his death will follow immediately after.

- He has a nightmare (which I'm not going to say too much about, because I wanted it to be kind of open for interpretation) about the future and darkness.

- The nightmare scares him (you know when you're scared by a nightmare but can't really explain why because it wasn't that scary? It's like that)

- Goes to courtyard of Powell Estate on New Year's Eve 2004 because he thinks he's going to get to speak to Rose.

- Future Doctor appears and the present Doctor is confused and goes to hide in the shadows.

- The scene plays out in exactly the same way as in Chapter 14 – Effectuation.

- Present Doctor wonders why the hell there are three Doctors in one place.

- He realises that he has a sort of future and that he can't die or regenerate until he talks to Rose as the Future Doctor

I promise the next chapter won't be as confusing as this one was.

Sometimes I look at the entire plan for SSR and think "WHAT. THE. HELL?"

So you've got that to look forward to.

Oh and thoughts on the Beast Below, the Eleventh Hour, Victory of the Daleks and the Time of the Angels?

Don't complain about not having seen it yet in your country. There is such invention as the internet for this.

Oh and with Victory of the Daleks, everyone's kind of like

'If Apple made Daleks…'

Next chapter up next week =D


	22. Remorse

The Doctor – Present Doctor (in the story)

Past Doctor – Older 10th Doctor (the one who was in Rose's life the first time)

Ninth Doctor – Ninth Doctor (You never would have guessed, would you?)

Other Doctor or Future Doctor – Doctor from New Year's. (The mysterious one with the TARDIS)

Confused? I certainly elephant.

…no one got the reference…?  
Oh. Okay.

Guilt  
By LilyRose XD

In contented minds, with daring they run  
They laugh, exploring lost worlds, hidden stars  
Living in precious moments, unaware  
That all the while they leave behind scars...

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who. Belongs to…wait…does it belong to RTD or Moffat? Because I reckon 10th Doctor stuff should belong to RTD not Moffat… Meh. It doesn't belong to me. =(

THIS CHAPTER SET 2005-2006 (Chapter 15)

* * *

XX

Remorse

The Doctor's ego was damaged. Severely. He'd been under the impression that he'd had a perfect memory until he was proved wrong…by himself. Maybe it was simply the fact that his thoughts had been occupied with unanswerable questions about the _Other_ Doctor. The one who'd appeared from the TARDIS on New Year's to talk to Rose. To talk to Rose but to never say anything. Maybe his memory and his history just wasn't as good as he'd assumed it was. Whatever it was, it was ego damaging.

He'd been wandering down the hall of the apartment while Rose and Jackie were out, only for him to hear Pete's door creak open. He'd slipped into Rose's empty empty room, full of objects but empty of Rose. Hurriedly, he'd forced her window open - his memory decent enough to grant him the remembrance of the last time he'd fled through her window - and hoisted himself up onto the sill and out, Gallifreyian curses escaping off his tongue as he left the Past Doctor far behind.

It was only now, much much later, safely hidden in the towel cupboard of Rose's apartment, that he'd remembered that he should have remembered this happening. He really should have seen it coming. He had to know when the Past Doctor would come after him so he knew where to be, when to escape, and when to allow his coat to swish into sight. If he didn't remember everything, then he could be caught out, and could potentially cause a paradox.

This brought him back to his previous wonderings on paradoxes. He was still confused and in the dark about why there hadn't been any sort of paradox yet, not from him talking to Jack, or talking to a grown-up Rose, or the fact that there was four Doctors in the same timeline. Three of which were the same incarnation of the Doctor. It just didn't make sense as to why there were no paradoxes, no implosions, no explosions. There never seemed to be too many Doctors in one place, and it didn't seem to matter if they met each other. And really, it should have been a paradox right from the start. He'd been messing with time ever since he arrived here the first time, almost 20 years ago. He'd altered happenings in Rose's life, he'd made an impression, a footprint upon Time, where he shouldn't have.

He had to remember everything. And now that he'd been caught out once. He was paranoid that it would happen again.

He listened for any approaching footsteps, and hearing none, extracted himself from the towel cupboard and towards the bathroom. He'd been using the bathroom taps to get himself water for a while now, not quite daring enough to try getting water from the kitchen, with Jackie's frying pan becoming a regular occurrence on the bench-top and the fact that he could hear presently hear the tv blaring in the living room and Rose and Jackie talking.

He crept towards the bathroom, but then he heard Jackie's voice from the living room again and it sounded like it was approaching the hallway…

There was something very, very familiar about this.

He heard the towel cupboard door open and close and was dumbfounded for a second before it hit him.

He'd been caught out again.

There was nothing he could do but continue on his journey to the bathroom, knowing he had to keep the continuity of the timeline and not change history.

This time, he remembered when he'd tried to catch himself.

_He was catching up on some light reading with a book called: 'Survey of the Universes,' and highlighting all the mistakes in the book, making a mental note to call the publishers and teach them what really happened when a black hole swallowed a dwarf star, when he heard the footsteps again. He was up with his ear against the door within seconds, his glasses pressed into his face by it. One he was certain it wasn't Jackie, he buzzed the sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, and gently turned the handle. He crept out into the hallway, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He heard Rose and Jackie talking in the living room while the tv blared, its flickering glow the only light in the hallway. He stumbled forward with hands out in front of him like a blind man, grabbing the air in an attempt to find himself. What he'd do if he did, he had no idea. But he did know it wasn't a very good idea in case Time was done messing with him and caused a paradox like it should have several times by now. The footsteps retreated around the corner of the hallway towards the bathroom. He followed, but then heard Jackie's voice approaching and he panicked. He glanced around the hallway but knew he'd never make it to one of the rooms before Jackie saw him. He noticed a cupboard just to his right and just managed to pull it open, hoist himself onto a shelf and close it before Jackie flicked on the hallway light. _

Jackie flicked on the hallway light.

"What did I tell you?! What did I say?! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE BEFORE I BASH YOUR BRAINS INTO NEXT YEAR!!!"

The Doctor had no idea where she'd got the frying pan from because it was highly unlikely that she'd been walking around with it like it was small enough to fit in her pocket or something but it appeared out of nowhere. Before he knew it, he was clutching his bruised and battered shoulder while allowing pitiful yelps to escape his mouth, giving his ego another fierce blow.

He managed to scramble past her while ducking from the cooking utensil and was only vaguely aware that he flung the door open before he was running down the stairs to the safety of the drunk's apartment.

It was the same as ever. Dreary, dull and lifeless. He would have said it was reflective of his mood if he hadn't felt like that already.

His shoulder ached with every movement, and he distractedly counted his bruises from recent times while he scolded himself for forgetting about when the Past Doctor would try to catch him again.

There must be something odd going on for him to forget these kinds of things. Maybe his distance from the TARDIS was affecting his brain, his physic link weakened by the millennia and light-years between them. Was he just getting older? Was that it? Had he reached his peak too early and now the rest of his life would be his memory, his brilliance, his thoughts and planning all deteriorating into nothing? If this was the case, he needed to get the TARDIS back, and soon. But even though he'd been through the same period of time twice, he hadn't noticed any more time windows than the ones he'd already known about.

He hated the Past Doctor. Yes, the Past Doctor was him not too long ago, but the Doctor hated him now. Maybe hated was too strong a word, but he definitely was envious of him. The Past Doctor had almost everything he didn't have, except the TARDIS. He had a better life, he had a room, which was safe from Jackie _and_ was comfortable. His bed was a bed, his mattress was not cold dusty floorboards and his pillow wasn't a square of carpet which smelled like sick. He had food and clean water close at hand, he had Jack for company, but most of all, he had Rose.

But soon he wouldn't. When the Ninth Doctor appeared in Rose's life, they'd both be left behind. Stuck down to the Earth. But then the Past Doctor would be gone and he'd be left. He would always be left. The last one. Yes, they were all the last Time Lord in existence, but _he_ was the last Doctor.

Then there was the matter of the Time Window. That was one thing he hadn't forgotten. He knew a Time Window would appear to the Past Doctor soon and the droid would hop out of it and talk to him. He was half-tempted to try and escape through it, but the Past Doctor would see him when he wasn't supposed to see him and he would change history and his timeline. So he didn't. He stayed in the drunk's apartment while a means of escape flashed into existence and then faded away.

It was a long year.

After Rose had left with the Ninth Doctor and the TARDIS, the Doctor's mood declined further. He'd thought the absence of the Past Doctor and the Ninth Doctor would improve his mood, because he had no other versions of himself prowling around, but the Ninth Doctor had whisked Rose away into another world and left him alone with only Jackie, the both of them left behind.

The first day or so wasn't so bad. Jackie seemed not too worried about her daughter's nonappearance, obviously assuming she was staying at Shareen's or was with Mickey or something, but when Mickey appeared on the doorstep of Rose's apartment asking where she was and then when Jackie saw him on the news being taken in for questioning, she worked herself into a panic.

Jackie had this manic state about her, which the Doctor was careful to stay very clear of. She would talk constantly to herself, while buying presents or making food, assuring herself that she'd give it all to Rose when Rose got back. But Rose didn't come back. Jackie, thinking she was alone in the apartment, would create forms and contracts and things and would sit at the dining table with the chair next to her slightly pushed out as to give the impression that Rose was sitting there. And she would discuss Rose's going to university or going overseas to travel with her invisible daughter who only existed in her mind.

Soon Jackie mad state declined into a constant fatigue. She began accepting that Rose was really gone and spent most of her time on the couch. Just sitting. Every so often she would shiver in her dressing gown which she always seemed to be wearing. The tv might be on, but she wasn't watching. She wasn't listening. She was listening out for a sound she hadn't even heard yet. She was listening out for the TARDIS landing with its brakes on, even though she had no idea what that sounded like. Even though she didn't know what a TARDIS was.

She would just sit on the couch. Her face was constantly pale, her hair limp, greasy and lifeless, her eyes shadowed by grey, by age. During these times, the Doctor didn't know if she was thinking and worrying about her daughter, or was just being a shell, an empty lifeless being that had been robbed of its source of joy. It's wellbeing and happiness.

The Doctor's feelings towards Jackie changed dramatically during this time. She'd always just been the annoying frying-pan-clad mother who he was constantly on the lookout for. But now he saw _why_ she was like this. Rose was the only thing she had left, was it not? She was like the Doctor in a way, the wandering Doctor, his home lost in fire and death and cowardice, with Rose to help him forget. Jackie had her little apartment, and a job she hadn't been committing to lately, no husband, no future, only Rose.

So the Doctor found himself doing his bit. His mood was still down, it was true, but helping Jackie gave him something to do in all the time that he had and didn't have. He made sure she never knew he'd done anything, but when Jackie stopped going shopping for food, he restocked the fridge, and she didn't wonder about it because she didn't even notice. He did all these little things that anyone but a mourning mother would have noticed. And it didn't matter if she did because she'd only think Mickey did it for her.

Mickey came around a lot at first. He'd help Jackie pay her bills and he was the one who created the missing posters for Rose. But then the police took him in for questioning again, after they'd released him the first time, and Jackie was starting to get better, to come back to herself, and though she didn't go back into her mad panicky state, she started pointing the finger at Mickey.

There was a kind of pitiful desperation in the way that she accused him. The Doctor knew she didn't really want Mickey to have kidnapped Rose or anything, but she needed someone to blame. She needed someone to hate, because she needed to feel something. With Rose gone, Jackie had a deep gaping hole which was only full of emptiness. She needed an emotion to cast away the horrible empty feeling she was full of. And so, she filled herself with hate for Mickey, to feel alive again, to feel emotions.

With Jackie's accusation of Mickey, came her life. She began to get on with things again, to buy food, go to work, to eat chips and cast away the greasy box. But sometimes the Doctor would catch her sitting still and alone, with the tiny apartment seeming so big. There were no more frying-pan bashings. The Doctor thought that maybe he could have even sat next to her and she wouldn't have noticed. But he wasn't prepared to take any chances. Once or twice, he was sure Jackie had seen him, but she'd look right through him, as if pretending he didn't exist would mean that he didn't. Or maybe she just thought he was now just a figment of her imagination.

Mickey had been staying away from the apartment ever since Jackie had accused him, and sometimes the Doctor would see in the local newspapers or on tv that Mickey been taken in for questioning again, but they had no evidence against him and couldn't press charges.

They all waited. Even though Jackie was getting on with her life, she waited by always opening Rose's bedroom door in the morning to see if she'd magically appeared overnight. Mickey waited by refusing time and time again that he'd kidnapped or murdered Rose and by hoping that one day she'd come back to prove all the police and gossipers wrong. The Doctor waited by counting down each day until she came back and would make everything alright again.

He don't know when he decided. Maybe it was a long time ago. Way back before he escaped from Rose's life and was thrown back in. Maybe he'd just decided now. But he knew that when she came back, he would leave. When she came back, was when he would say goodbye.

It was a hectic time. With the Slitheen ship crash-landing and Rose coming back and all the people in Rose's apartment and Mickey and Jackie and the police and most of all, the Ninth Doctor, it was pretty hectic. Jackie may have been getting on with her life while Rose was gone, but she truly came back to herself when Rose returned. The one thing in the universe that Jackie had left was back, and the Doctor felt so bad knowing that Rose would be leaving again, leaving her mother stuck down to Earth and not really knowing how it felt.

The Doctor wanted to apologise to Jackie. To say sorry for doing this to her, for whisking Rose away to see the stars and not even thinking twice about the people Rose was leaving behind. About what he'd done to them. Changed their lives without even asking first. He couldn't apologise though, and the fact that the Ninth Doctor didn't even really _care_ about what Jackie had been through was the worst thing. He just wanted to investigate the spaceship. He just wanted to show Rose the universe and let them run for their lives every day, not even bothering to think of the mother imagining this as she was pinned down simply by the fact that the Doctor had chosen Rose and not her, the mother imagining the danger and being constantly worried about her daughter. Knowing that Rose may never come back.

Still, the Doctor was leaving Jackie. He felt horrible for doing that. For leaving her to worry for herself, because he wanted his life back. He was getting so selfish in his age, in his pain. There was no explanation that he could give himself that didn't sound weak and self-centred. He was leaving Jackie, and there was nothing he wanted to do about it, and that made him horrible.

He kept trying to find a time to say goodbye to Rose. But Nine was always there. At least, that's what he told himself. The Ninth Doctor wasn't there _all_ the time, and the Doctor definitely had an opportunity or two to say goodbye to Rose. But he found himself standing in the shadows or the doorway, and not getting too close, not entering the bubble that surrounded Rose now. Now that the Ninth Doctor had changed her. She was so ecstatic, so full of life and freedom, now that she was able to travel the stars, and the Doctor didn't want to tread on that. To stamp it into the ground with his mournful goodbye.

And then it was too late. Rose was gone again. Flying out across the stars, with a hand to hold and there was so much to see. What did he have? He had Pete's room and a cold hand, seemingly dusted with cobwebs, and only able to see Jackie's loneliness.

So he never got to say goodbye.

And why?

Because he was a coward.

But he had a plan to set in motion so he couldn't dwell on that now.

And that was his mistake.

* * *

…WAIT WHAT?!?!

SOMETHING IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING, JANET?!?!

Amazingly enough, yeah.

So it's all going to be a hell of a lot more interesting now that stuff is actually happening.

=D


	23. Reunite

JACK'S BACK

Paradoxical Encounters  
by LilyRose XD

Finally there is something to do  
A chance to start the running  
We have an old friend, a TARDIS, a plan  
A plan that is deceptively cunning...

Disclaimer: Really? You just want me to make myself depressed by telling you that I don't own Doctor Who don't you?

SET IN 2006

* * *

XXI

Reunite

The Doctor shifted his weight from one foot to the other, causing the bushes to rustle slightly. He found it rather humiliating that a superior Time Lord like himself, had to hide in bushes. But the mothers on the other side of the park had been giving his coated figure a few odd glances as they gathered up their children and forced them to play further away from him. He'd been highly offended and was about to stalk off when he saw the conveniently placed bushes. They were set on high ground and were a perfect viewing point for him. He'd nonchalantly made his way over there and hidden himself.

He shifted his weight again, growing uncomfortable in his crouched position amongst the wet leaves and scratching branches. He sighed, wishing his life could just be a little bit easier for once and wondering whether the children would leave soon so he could give up and go back to the drunk's apartment.

There was a swish of a coat. Finally.

The Doctor leapt up from behind the bushes, causing some of the children to gape at him in alarm and the mothers to scowl in his direction, but he was already pelting across the grass of the park and didn't pay them any attention. He ran after the figure, who'd turned his back and ran when the Doctor began to give chase.

The Doctor followed him around the buildings of the Powell Estate, growing tired, and only when he'd been pursuing the Time Agent for five or so minutes did he think to call out.

"JACK! WAIT!"

Jack didn't slow as he looked over his shoulder at the Doctor. Upon recognising him, he drew himself to a halt, and the Doctor caught up at a jog.

"Sorry, Doc, I didn't recognise you," Jack said lightly, but the Doctor's face was all serious.

"I need to talk to you."

* * *

"Wait…we're going to steal your own TARDIS?"

"It's much more complicated than that, Jack. We can't just waltz in and take it while they're in there or something. We have to choose a point when it's possible, when they're looking the other way, when there's a chance to."

"But won't it cause a paradox?" Jack asked.

"Weeell," the Doctor tugged on his ear as he stretched out the word, "technically, yes it will. But it should only cause a paradox if we don't bring it back."

They were sitting on the roof. The wind blew the scent of the city towards them as their coats swished feebly. The Doctor had been going stir-crazy, cooped up on the Powell Estate and trying to find Jack. But it took three months for the Time Agent to finally show his face and the Doctor was still annoyed about that.

"Where've you been? I've been trying to find you for months you know. Months."

"I'm so terribly sorry, Doctor. I didn't realise how important I was to you, how highly you place me, how your life would just—"Jack gushed sarcastically before the Doctor interrupted.

"—Anyway, so we can pull it off as long as we get the TARDIS back before the ninth version of me has noticed that it's gone."

"But when are you and Rose next going to appear in England and give us a chance to steal it?"

"Cardiff."

"Cardiff?"

"You don't remember? You were there after all."

"Oh, you mean the rift, and the Slitheen and all that?"

"Yep, see you do remember."

"Barely. It's been a long time Doctor."

"Oh yes, of course, you living through the centuries again and constantly dying, I remember. Trampled by horses, World War I, World War II, shot through the heart, fell off a cliff. A good life, you've had."

"Wait…I never told you about that."

The Doctor froze. He silently cursed in Gallifreyian for letting that slip. He'd momentarily forgotten that this Jack hadn't been to the end of the universe yet. The end of the universe and the fob watch and the Master. And because Jack hadn't been to the end of the universe, he hadn't had that whole conversation with the Doctor yet.

_The orange light illuminated the Time Lord and the Time Agent oddly as Jack worked amongst the Stat radiation._

"_When did you realise?" asked the Doctor, his forehead pressed against the glass in the door._

"_Earth, 1892. Got in a fight on Ellis Island. Man shot me through the heart, then I woke up. Thought it was kinda strange. But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War One, World War Two, poison, starvation, a stray javelin…"_

_The Doctor winced. "Ooh."_

"_In the end, I got the message. I'm the man who can never die. And all that time you knew," Jack said, an accusing tone creeping into his voice._

"_That's why I left you behind," the Doctor replied truthfully. "It's not easy, even just…looking at you, Jack, cause you're wrong."_

_Jack's mouth had clenched, but it allowed one word to slip out before it closed up._

"_Thanks."_

"How did you know about all that, Doctor?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"Err…superior Time Lord physic knowledge…" he trailed off.

"Right," Jack replied, unconvinced, but he decided to drop it because the Doctor looked like he was scolding himself inside his head.

"So, are you going to tell me the whole plan, now?"

"I pretty much did tell you the whole plan. We get to Cardiff, we wait until their backs are turned and we steal the TARDIS to get back to the spaceship."

"You're plans are never that simple."

"No, that's it. I promise," lied the Doctor.

* * *

"Would you please inform me as to why we're here?" Jack asked as they stood in the bustling crowd in a train station.

"We're getting the train to Cardiff."

"What, your 'superior Time Lordliness'," Jack air quoted, "which you're so often bragging about, can't allow us to travel to Cardiff a more advanced way than a train?"

"My 'superior Time Lordliness' is occupied trying to keep you from introducing yourself to everyone with a postcode."

Jack pouted.

"So, tickets! Tickets! Jack, be a sport and go get us some tickets, would you?"

"No money."

"No money?" the Doctor echoed incredulously. "What've you been spending it all on then?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Jack winked.

"No, I wouldn't actually," the Doctor corrected himself. "But seriously, you don't have any money?"

"Not any cash anyway," Jack finally answered seriously.

"Useless," the Doctor tutted.

"Well, where's your money then?" Jack shot back.

"Err…" the Doctor scratched the back of his neck, "well usually, I just sonic an ATM and off I go," he admitted.

"Ohh, the truth comes out, doesn't it?" Jack replied.

"Well…um…do you see an ATM anywhere? Where we can use your credit card or whatever it is you humans have to get some money. Or we could buy our tickets from a person, and just pay by credit card. That's always nice, buying things from a person. I know this one planet where in about 58 years, they'll replace all their automatic machines with people after there were protests about how the machines didn't smile at them, and that's hugely offensive to the Jllfni of course so—"

"No," Jack interrupted the Doctor's rambling, "I don't see any ATMs or people to buy tickets off. All I see are these automatic machines which the Jillphknee or whatever they're called find so offensive."

"Well, that's a shame," the Doctor said vaguely, thinking about how disappointed the Jllfni would be, and forgetting the real problem that was associated with the fact that there were no people to buy tickets off.

"It's no matter, Doc, because I have a plan."

"Yes?"

"Okay, so, we dress you up as a poor old woman and set you down in the middle of a platform in rags and try to get people to give you money for a train ticket."

"Why can't _you_ be the poor old woman?" frowned the Doctor.

"Because I'm much too manly," Jack replied without missing a beat. The Doctor scowled.

"Well, _my_ plan is much better. Why don't we just use the physic paper and pretend to be ticket inspectors?"

Jack muttered under his breath, but eventually nodded his assent.

They made their way to Platform 3, which had trains going to and from Cardiff apparently, and waited until a train pulled up at the platform.

"So, Jack," the Doctor said as the crowd jostled around them trying to get to the train doors, "just walk in there like you own the place, and we'll be fine."

"I always own the place," was Jack's only reply before he stepped onto the train.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and followed him.

* * *

They strolled onto the train, trying to look official and serious.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, both myself and my colleague here," Jack gestured to the Doctor who removed the physic paper and flashed it at the passengers, "are ticket inspectors. We'll just be completing a random inspection this morning, so if you could all have your train tickets handy, it would be greatly appreciated."

They made their way around the train carriage, asking for some passengers' tickets before staring seriously at the tickets and sometimes conversing in low whispers before handing them back to the passenger.

They came to one woman, and the Doctor asked to see her ticket, all the while thinking that he'd seen her somewhere before…

"OF COURSE YOU ASKED TO SEE MY TICKET," she screamed, causing the rest of the carriage to go silent. "EVERYONE ALWAYS ASKS ME. IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT MY FACE THAT JUST LOOKS SUSPICIOUS? DON'T LIE TO ME, I KNOW YOU THINK THERE IS. I'M _ALWAYS_ TARGETED. IT'S JUST NOT FAIR I TELL YOU!"

It clicked. It was the same woman who he'd been stuck in a cell with overnight, and who'd knocked him out.

_His cellmate had gone back to her shouting after the other policemen had stowed their guns and gone back to their coffee and she was causing him to develop a pounding headache. _

_He screwed his eyes shut and held his head with his hands as if that would make the pain go away. The yelling seemed to get louder and he opened his eyes to see the woman standing over him with her hands on her hips in an extremely accurate interpretation of Jackie. He tuned himself in and realised that she was now screaming at him._

"_YOU'RE NOT EVEN LISTENING TO ME, ARE YOU?! NO ONE EVER LISTENS! I HAVE RIGHTS AND THEY ARE BEING VIOLATED. WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE, I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!" she turned to face the policemen. _

"_YOU WHO THINK THAT I'M LESS THAN YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE POLICEMEN! I'LL PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE, I WILL! AND THEN WE'LL SEE WHO LAUGHED AT ME!" She swung around to the Doctor again. _

"_EVEN YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT MY RIGHTS. WELL, I'LL SHOW YOU!" she crowed before she drew her arm back and then punched him in the face. _

Thankfully, she hadn't seemed to recognised him as of yet. She carried on complaining for a while, during which time the Doctor turned to Jack with a question in his eyes, but the Time Agent just shrugged, also having no idea how to get her to shut up. Then the Doctor thought of something.

"No, miss, calm down, we're not targeting you especially. This is just a random inspection. If you want we could inspect everyone's tickets…?"

"YOU'D BETTER INSPECT EVERYONE'S TICKETS AFTER THE WAY YOU'VE TREATED ME! YOU'VE LOWERED MY SELF-ESTEEM, I FEEL HORRIBLE NOW, I FEEL LIKE I HAVE A FACE WHICH JUST LOOKS LIKE I'M A BAD PERSON. THAT'S HOW YOU'VE MADE ME FEEL. SO NOW YOU'D BETTER MAKE EVERYONE ELSE FEEL LIKE THAT TOO!"

"Of course we will, miss," Jack soothed. He turned to the gaping passengers.

"If you could all have your tickets in hand, please, ladies and gentlemen."

And so they were forced to inspect every single passengers' ticket while the screaming lady followed them around to make sure they were. Whenever a new batch of passengers got on, they'd be ordered to go and check their tickets. It was half an hour later, when the Doctor and Jack were exhausted with being serious and listening to the woman, that only one very familiar passenger boarded the train.

Mickey.

The lady's eyes had locked onto him already.

"THERE! A NEW ONE! A NEW ONE! CHECK HIS TICKET!"

The Doctor gritted his teeth, thinking. Mickey could recognise him from the time or two that Mickey had spotted him in the apartment, but he knew he'd have to be the one to pretend to inspect Mickey's ticket. Jack couldn't because Mickey would be meeting a past version of Jack later in the day, and that would cause a paradox.

So the Doctor was forced to walk over to Mickey.

"Ticket, please," he said, trying to look gloomy and stern. Mickey was busy rummaging in his pocket for something and handed over his ticket without looking up. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and held his ticket up to the light and pretending to read the barcode on it before handing it back.

Mickey looked up to receive his ticket, and frowned.

"Don't I know--"  
"—You must be mistaking me with someone else," the Doctor interrupted before he could even finish his question, rumbling in a deep voice in an attempt to sound different.

The Time Lord turned on his heel and walked back over to Jack and the screaming lady at the other end of the carriage before Mickey could reply.

* * *

"Of _course_, now I remember," Jack said as they followed Mickey off the train, careful to stay far behind, "Mickety-Mick-Mick-Mickey came to Cardiff to give Rose her passport. Was horribly jealous of me as I recall it. Me being so manly and all that."

"That's where you're wrong Jack."

"Are you saying I'm not manly?"

The Doctor struggled not to roll his eyes and snort.

"No, I'm not saying that. I'm _saying_ that, you're wrong in saying that he 'was horribly jealous' because it hasn't happened yet. You should be saying that 'he _will_ be horribly jealous'. Get your tenses right next time. But, also, no, I don't think you're manly."

Jack scowled.

By the time they'd got out of the train station, they'd fallen behind due to the overwhelming crowd and lost Mickey. The Doctor was beginning to get frustrated.

"WHY? WHY CAN'T ANYTHING JUST GO RIGHT FOR ME!" he yelled as he kicked a nearby bin.

"What do you mean, Doctor?" Jack asked seriously for once.

"I _mean_ that this isn't going right, just like the ticket inspector ploy didn't go right, and the whole thing with revisiting all the places Rose and I went in the first place. Nothing has gone right from way back then, from before then in fact, nothing's ever gone right."

"'Revisiting all the places Rose and I went?' Why were you doing that?" Jack asked. "Why isn't she here with you, Doctor. What happened to her?"

The Doctor ignored him.

"We're going to be late, Jack. And we can't be late. WE. CAN'T. If we're late and we miss this chance, then I'll go back to waiting, waiting for my life to change, because I always think that it can improve. I'm always waiting for it to get better. But it never does."

"You can't _wait_ for it to get better, Doctor. You have to go out and do it yourself."

Jack held out his hand.

"Come on."

"We have to get to the TARDIS. What are we doing?" asked the Doctor.

"We're making your life better."

* * *

They watched from behind the water tower as the Ninth Doctor, Rose, Jack and Mickey walked across the plaza. Jack couldn't resist making a comment.

"Just look at me!"

The Doctor didn't roll his eyes or even bother trying to acknowledge that he'd heard the Captain. His eyes tracked Rose as she walked with that long scarf swinging so very like another old scarf he used to wear…

Once they were safely inside the café on the pier, the Doctor and Jack made their way to the TARDIS. The Doctor placed a hand on the door, and physically shuddered with the onslaught of emotions and power and memories that invaded him. This TARDIS may not have been the one he'd lost, but it would do for now. He remembered when he was reunited with _his_ TARDIS.

_His hand grappled in the air, as he moved forward, no longer stumbling, but with such a blankness that most would have thought him a spirit of the dead. His hand suddenly connected with the rough wood of the door, and he was flooded. Flooded with his emotions and feelings, he knew who he was. He was alive. He was the Doctor. He saved planets and universes and he never stopped, he never looked back, and he wondered suddenly at what point he'd forgotten who he was. He breathed, he smelled, he tasted, he saw, and he felt. He felt everything, and he saw his surroundings: The TARDIS, the room, and the droids that seemed to appear from the folds in the walls. _

Jack didn't say a word, for which the Doctor was grateful. He didn't have the energy to be witty, to make sarcastic remarks, to joke around like he wasn't the Doctor, last of the Time Lords. The door creaked as the Doctor opened it, and his mouth dried out as he stepped inside. His eyes drifted shut, his nose breathed in all it possibly could, to absorb as much of Time as it could in one inhalation.

His fingers drifted over the controls, the columns, the rails. His battered shoes sounded out against the grating of the floor. Once he'd circled the console, felt everything, mended himself as much as he could do, he spoke.

"Okay. I'm ready."

Jack stepped in. Silent. Serious. The Doctor wanted to thank him for waiting, for letting the Doctor just do this without him, but he didn't need to. Jack knew. Jack closed the door behind him and it creaked again. The Doctor smiled for what felt like the first time in forever. And then they were gone.

* * *

And he listened to the sound of the brakes being left on, and he saw the time rotor, and he tasted memories, and he smelled Time, and he felt like the Doctor.

Jack had a new room. He'd been about to go to his old room when the Doctor has stopped him with a hand on his arm. He'd shaken his head, and shown the Captain a new room. He hadn't explained why, but Jack thought it was because he might have disturbed something in his old room, and his past self would have noticed. He didn't ask the Doctor though.

He'd settled himself on his bed, tired enough for an early night, when he heard a creak of floorboards. He sat up, listening hard. Another creak. If he really concentrated he could hear the sounds of footsteps pattering down the hallway. He swung himself out of bed and made his way to the door. He didn't quite dare to open it and instead put his ear up against it. The footsteps continued on for another ten seconds or so before they stopped. There was the slight squeak of a door as it was opened. But the footsteps didn't go inside.

It happened again the following night. They'd been floating around in the Time Vortex, the Doctor having seemingly forgotten they were going to the spaceship to get his TARDIS back off the droids, and Jack not wishing to remind him. The Doctor had spent most of the time on his own, in the library. If Jack went in there the Doctor would send him away, telling Jack he was busy reading, with his nose seemingly buried deep in a book, but Jack could see that his eyes were fixed on the same spot on the page.

This time, Jack counted the footsteps until they stopped at that same door.

The next 'day' in the TARDIS, if you could call it a 'day' when they were floating in the Time Vortex, Jack waited until he was sure the Doctor was in the library before returning to his bedroom. He started walking in the direction the footsteps had done, making his stride slightly longer as he did so. He counted his steps until he reached the point. He stopped walking, refusing to look to the doors to either side of him in case they'd jump out at him or something. Jack closed his eyes and turned ninety degrees until he was supposedly facing the door, which the footsteps had led him too.

It was a plain wooden door, void of any colour. Alike to all the others that stretched down the hallway. Jack turned the handle, and pushed open the door slowly. It squeaked. Jack stared into the room before closing the door again. His footsteps didn't enter the room.

* * *

Jack was lounging around in one of the living rooms, full of couches and not much else, when he felt the TARDIS land. He rushed to the console room, to see the Doctor there at the controls for the first time in days. The Doctor's eyes followed Jack as he walked to the door and opened it to see where they'd landed. All he saw was pipes and steam and machinery.

"The spaceship?" Jack asked, his voice rusty from disuse.

"No," the Doctor replied just as hoarsely.

There was a silence. Jack didn't ask where they were, knowing the Doctor would tell him eventually.

"2007," the Doctor said. "The Valiant."

* * *

I'm sorry, really, it was all happy until the end wasn't it?

And if you didn't get the thing with the footsteps and the door then please do tell me. I didn't really want to write it. I thought it was better that way. But if you didn't get it then do tell.

Thanks to all reviews from last chapter =D

NO CHAPTER NEXT WEEKEND AS I HAVE TO GIVE SOME SPEECHES AND I HAVE HOCKEY TRIALS AND WHAT NOT AND I HAVE TO STUDY FOR EXAMS

So…fun times.


	24. Steal

IT'S BAAAACK .

Too much?

JANET IS SO SORRY FOR MAKING YOU WAIT THIS LONG.

But you see…

I had to study for exams, and then I had exams, and then I had to train for the hockey Junior State Championships, and then I had the Junior State Championships, and now I'm training (like a banshee) for state hockey trials on Sunday.

So…yeah.

And you all should have known that I wasn't dead, given that I was uploading other smaller stuff like Glimpses and Meringues and Never Forgotten. (I'm not promoting my other stories – what are these lies? And no one reads this anyway, so it doesn't matter.)

Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to RTD or the Moff or whoever it belongs to, given that this story is about Ten and not Eleven.

He'll Be Back  
by LilyRose XD

Time can be re-written,  
Rarely and at great cost.  
And it's dangerous, ridiculous,  
Time in essence shouldn't be crossed…

* * *

XXII

Steal

Jack turned his head to frown at the Doctor, who was standing at the TARDIS console.  
"The Valiant?" Jack asked.  
The Doctor nodded. "You haven't been there yet, Jack. My past, your future."  
"Right," said Jack, not really getting it. "And what are we doing here?"  
"_I'm_ going to go and get something. You are going to stay in the TARDIS and not cause trouble."  
"I am not," Jack retorted. "You know me, Doctor. If you're going out there, I'm coming with you."  
"Jack, this is your future. There's another version of you running around out there and I don't want to think about what would happen if you met him," the Doctor argued.  
"Doctor, we saw another version of me just before, remember? We saw that other me in Cardiff travelling with Rose and big-eared you and Mickey."  
"No, Jack, this is different. A future version of you is a lot more dangerous. You're going to stay here." The Doctor glared at him, before turning back to the console and flicking a few buttons.  
"Go on then, Doctor," Jack said bitterly. "Go and have your adventures without me."  
"I'm not going yet."  
"Scared, are we?" Jack taunted, a scowl on his face. "Afraid of what's out there? Of _who_ maybe. Who is it? The Daleks?" Jack paused when the Doctor didn't reply. "The Timelords?" Jack asked, softer this time.  
The Doctor gritted his teeth, still with his back to the Captain.  
"Well, if you don't need me," Jack said, going back to his sullen tone, "I'll be in the kitchen." He stormed out of the console room.  
The Doctor sighed, parking the TARDIS fully, and going over to shut the TARDIS doors, which Jack had left open. Jack was right, he was too scared to go out there with thoughts of the Master hanging over his head.

It was later, much later, when Jack returned to the console room to apologise.  
"Look," he said, walking to the console, convinced the Doctor would be there, "I'm sorry, Doctor, I just-" he stopped, frowning. The console room was strangely empty. Jack turned around and made his way out again. "And I had a speech all planned out and everything," he muttered.

* * *

The Doctor was hiding in the library. He poured over books he'd read several times before just to occupy himself. Jack found him there on the third day since they'd arrived at the Valiant.  
"There you are!" Jack said, cheerily, as he strolled through the library doors. Jack stopped when the Doctor didn't look up from his book. "Doctor?" The Time Lord didn't look up, and just continued murmuring about quantum physics. Jack sighed. "You can't just hide forever you know."  
"Can," the Doctor muttered to himself.  
"Doctor, what's happened to you? The Doctor I used to know, the Doctor I thought I knew, would never hide from his past like this. I don't know what you've seen, or what you've done, so I guess I don't really know how you feel…but that's because you don't _tell_ me. If you told me what was wrong, maybe I could help. I've changed, you know. I _can_ help you. It's not always about making jokes and blaring guns at aliens, I get that now. Just…let me help you."  
The Doctor didn't say anything or give any indication that he'd heard.  
Jack sighed. "Just think about that."

Jack found the note taped to the console.

_Jack_, it read. _I've gone to get the Paradox Machine - don't worry, I'll tell you what that is later. You were right. I can't just sit here and mope while the universe goes on around me. There are lives to be saved, planets to be seen, marvels to behold. And maybe I've got a time machine, but if I sit here forever, then I'll miss them. They're all out there, my companions, going on with their lives after I left them, and so it's only fair that I go on with mine. We're going to snatch Rose Tyler out of the middle of the fleet of clock droids. And then we're going to set everything right again. The timelines, the droids, me, everything. So thank you for being with me.  
Don't leave the TARDIS, it's for your own good. I don't dare to imagine the amount of people you'll say "hello" to, if I let you out._

_The Doctor._

_

* * *

_

The Doctor crept along steaming corridor after steaming corridor, having to duck whenever a Toclafane zoomed past or one of the Valiant's many guards. It took over an hour of creeping and ducking, but he found the Paradox Machine in a far off corner of the sky-ship. He edged towards it, still amazed at how it could look exactly the same on the outside, the same blue police box it always was, but he could hear the TARDIS screaming in his head at the pain of being cannibalised. He shuddered, blocking the physic link he had with TARDIS to dull the screams, but knowing they were still there, as he ducked behind a large box.

The Paradox Machine was guarded by three normal human guards, which the Doctor was thankful for. If it had been Toclafane, he wouldn't have been able to get close. While all the other guards on the ship had simple machine guns, these three had special laser ones that the Master must have given them. This allowed the Doctor to short out the guns with his sonic screwdriver. He waited a few seconds for them to realise their guns had stopped, before bursting out from behind the box and running full pelt at the Paradox Machine. Only one guard was smart enough to try and tackle the Doctor instead of attempting to shoot at him, but the Doctor simply skipped around the heavier built man and flung himself into the Paradox Machine.

* * *

Despite what the Doctor might have said, and what Jack had said himself – he still wanted to go out there. The Doctor was only thinking of Jack's safety when he told the Captain to stay in the TARDIS, but Jack was immortal, wasn't he? And this Paradox Machine thing, would be there to solve any paradoxes that occurred if he met his future self, wouldn't it? So he tried to leave the TARDIS, wanting to help the Doctor find the Paradox Machine though he had no idea where it was or what it looked like, but the TARDIS doors were locked.

"Please, let me out. I need to help the Doctor," he told the ceiling, but only got a resolved hum in response. "Please?" He asked again, touching one of the doors. He tried to open them again, still locked firmly. He made his way to the jumpseat near the console.  
"Okay, you win," he sighed.

* * *

The Doctor locked the doors of the Paradox Machine as soon as he closed them, and didn't bother worrying about the guards banging on the doors; they couldn't get in now. He made his way up to the changed console of the Paradox Machine, shuddering with every ring of the cloister bell. A puff of steam erupted from somewhere, and he waved his hand in front of his face to clear it. The console was encased inside a metal cage that ran from the floor up to the ceiling, enclosing the controls and the time rotor. The Doctor placed a hand on the metal, and sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said, reopening his physic link to try and reassure the screaming voice of the cannibalised TARDIS. "I will fix this," he promised. "But I need you now. So please, try and bear it, for me." He took his hand away to draw out the sonic screwdriver, waving it up and down the metal cage and frowning at the readings he got.

"Hang on a minute," he said, grimacing. "He's had you running like this for years. Not just the eighteen months that I thought. I was wrong. He's been here _much_ longer. Why would he do that, hmm?" he asked, placing his hand on the metal cage again.  
"Oh," he whispered. "No."  
Torchwood had been wrong. He had been wrong. The Master hadn't arrived on Earth eighteen months ago, but several years. He must have lain low for that time, gradually setting up the Archangel network and forcing his presence onto the world, as well as creating documents and photographs to give himself a past.  
"But that means…" the Doctor trailed off. "He's been here since 2005, at least. _That's_ why I could see myself that New Year's Eve. That's why I could cross my own timeline again. Because it was running all this time."  
Shocked at this revelation, he pulled back from the metal cage again, and ran a hand over his face.  
"It's okay," he whispered. "I'll be back. I'll come back for you. But I can't save you right now. I've got to uphold the timeline as best I can." He moved towards the doors, the cloister bell ringing louder in his ears with every step away that he took.  
"I'll come back," he promised before exiting the Paradox Machine, only to come face to face with the guards again, with faces that suggested that they were not at all amused.  
He grimaced.  
"Ah."

* * *

Jack had only been on the jumpseat for fifteen minutes or so before he leaped up again. "Please! Please let me help the Doctor do whatever he has to do. I'm just sitting here, but I could be out there helping. He needs the great Time Agent Captain to get through his hardships." He got an exasperated hum from his last sentence and nothing more. He sighed again, feeling defeated, before he got a sudden nudge in his mind.  
"What?" he asked immediately.  
He heard a click and turned towards the TARDIS doors again. He strode towards them and tried to open them again, and they opened.  
"But why now?" he asked, with one hand still on the door. "Or have you simply been charmed by my-" The TARDIS zapped his hand, and he winced and drew it back from the door. "Okay, point taken," he nodded.  
"Is the big man in trouble?" he asked and got an affirmative hum.  
"Right. Lucky he's got me to save him then, isn't it?" he said, and got another shock.  
"I'm going, I'm going," he muttered, striding out of the TARDIS and closing the doors behind him.

* * *

"You know," the Doctor said matter-of-factly to the guard, "it does get kind of boring getting captured all the time. I guess you wouldn't know would you? Being a guard and all. Shame really, that you haven't experienced this kind of boredom before in your life and-"  
The guard turned and silenced him with a glare. The Doctor just made a face.  
It was true though. Being captured was always the same. Trussed up, often with handcuffs, shoved into some sort of cell, being left to stew on your own with unpleasant smells – it really did get old. He should have just tried to run when he walked out of the Paradox Machine. Instead he'd tried to reason with the guards, even though that never worked.

He sighed, wiggling his fingers behind his back to try to get the blood flowing back into them. He was in a sort of cell. More of just a space with metal mesh for walls. There was only one guard outside, the others had left after they searched him and found that he only carried the sonic screwdriver, which they deemed not dangerous and put back in his pocket.

In the guard's point of view, the Doctor didn't look to fussed at being captured, but inside he was really quite worried. Not of the guards or anything, but if they told the Master that they'd captured him, and the Master came to look, everything would get very bad very quickly. Because as far as the Master knew, there was only one Doctor on this ship, and he was aged and fragile, sleeping in a tent on the floor. If the Master found out that a future Doctor was here to steal the Paradox Machine, who knew what the other Time Lord would do to him.

He tried to reassure himself that since the Master had never found out about him when he was the past Doctor, then he wouldn't now, but he knew quite well that time could be rewritten, and that even if it hadn't happened the first time, it could happen now. The Paradox Machine would uphold any paradoxes until such time as it was destroyed by the future version of Jack, but the Doctor was desperate to try and keep the timeline the same.

The Doctor waited for half an hour, just sitting there doing nothing, until the guard grew weary of being vigilant of watching over him and sat down outside the cell door, head slumped down. The Doctor stood up very slowly and silently, and brought his handcuffed hands down as far as they would reach behind him. He then drew up one leg and then placed it down behind his hands, and then did the same with the other leg, so his hands were now in front of him. He brought them up and tried to remove the sonic screwdriver from his suit jacket pocket without making too much noise.

It took him over fifteen minutes to get the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, because he had to hold the side of his suit jacket in one hand and try and reach into his pocket with the other while they were handcuffed together. He got it out of his pocket, only for the device to fall onto the floor with a small clang. The guard's head shot up, and the Doctor had to push the sonic screwdriver behind him with his foot and sit down in front of it, to hide it from the view of the guard. He shot a suspicious glance at the Doctor, failing to notice that the Time Lord's hands were now handcuffed in front of him when they'd been behind him before. The guard sat back down with his back to the Doctor, but kept his head up and alert.

The Doctor stood up again and shuffled around so his back was to the cell door and the guard, before kneeling down and trying to pick up the sonic screwdriver. He managed to twist the hand holding it inside the handcuff so the screwdriver was facing the handcuff lock. With a quick buzz that sounded far too loud to the Doctor's ears, the handcuffs popped off and he was free.

He gently placed the handcuffs down on the concrete of the cell floor, and crept towards the cell door with the screwdriver still in hand. With a quick buzz the door clicked open, and the Doctor waited a few seconds before flinging it wide open and jumping over the seated guard.

He ran down the corridor, hearing the guard shout, "Hey!" and then some scuffling which suggested the guard was getting up to come after him, but by that time, the Doctor was long gone.

He took a twisting route back to the TARDIS. He got lost twice, almost got caught again, got frowned at in confusion by Francine Jones when he ran by but eventually, he made it back.

He unlocked the TARDIS doors and opened them to find the console room empty. He frowned, sure that Jack would have been pacing the room by now, impatient for him to return and slightly irritated that he couldn't join in on the fun, but the Captain was nowhere to be seen. He walked up to the TARDIS console and placed a hand on it.  
"I'm so sorry for what I did to you," he said softly. "For letting him turn you into the Paradox Machine." The TARDIS hummed in confusion back at him, and then he realised that this wasn't his TARDIS at all, but his ninth incarnation's.  
"Well," he said, "since it hasn't happened yet to you, even though it's happening now, and though it has happened to me," he frowned, almost getting confused at the complicatedness himself, "…I want you to know that I was sorry, I am sorry, and I will be sorry." The TARDIS hummed gently back at him, and he smiled. "That's the spirit, old girl," he said softly, patting the console. "Together to the end," he muttered. He kept his hand there for what could have been a minute, and what could have been a year, in a time machine, before he withdrew it.  
"Now…where's Jack?"

* * *

It'd hadn't taken Jack more than two hours to work out that the Valiant, in truth, was actually pretty boring to explore. There was the initial excitement of getting a chance to see a future version of himself, which had gradually worn away as he crept down corridor after corridor, easily avoiding boring human guards, with normal machine guns. He'd found a window once, and discovered that the Valiant was actually a sky ship, but that had been the highlight of his exploration so far.

He was walking down another endless steaming corridor, tired of sneaking around when he hadn't seen a guard in the past fifteen minutes, when he saw the sphere. He frowned, intrigued, and approached it.  
"What the hell are you?" he said, more to himself, as it floated gently in front of him, beeping and spinning.  
It replied, shocking him and causing him to take a step back.  
"I am a Toclafane. Would you like to play?"  
"Play?" asked Jack, not knowing whether to be worried at this sphere creature or not.  
"Oh, yes. No one ever plays with me. I get so lonely."  
"Um…sorry, but I don't swing that way," Jack said. "Know what I mean?" he continued, and winked.  
The Toclafane's voice grew frosty. "Well, I guess I'll just have to call my Master. You'll wish you played with me then. All I was going to do was slice you up a little."  
Jack had no idea who the Master was, but nevertheless the smile slipped off his face and he swallowed.  
"No, no, that's alright. I'll…play."  
"Oh, goody. I knew you'd want to play with me," the Toclafane said gleefully. Its blades unfolded and began spinning through the air as it approached Jack.  
"Wait!" called Jack, and the Toclafane stopped for a second. "What are you guarding?" he asked, looking behind the Toclafane for the first time to see countless crisscrossing laser beams in front of some sort of raised dais, on top of which was a metal device.  
"Oh, that's the Master's toy," said the Toclafane. "You wouldn't want him to turn it on you. It does all sorts of horrible things. It can age you beyond your years. Which is why you're going to _play with me_," it said coldly, and its blades began to spin again.  
Jack closed his eyes and stood his ground as the Toclafane continued towards him, making a horrible sound that Jack could only assume was supposed to be a laugh.

* * *

DO YOU REALISE JUST HOW MANY JOKES THERE ARE IN THE CHAPTER TITLE?

- They don't technically steal anything in this chapter.

- They 'steal' around, as in sneak.

- Steal is homophonic (no, not homophobic) to steel, as in the Valiant being all metal and stuff.

THREE JOKES.

This chapter is kind of a two part chapter, because I wasn't going to end it where I did (hence why the title makes no sense), but then it was getting long so I decided to save the next bit for the next chapter.

Next chapter will be uploaded in the next week or so.


	25. Dashing

Oh, god.

Yes, I'm back.

And I am so so sorry. I know everyone on here who neglects a story for far too long says that, but there's not much else I can say.

I didn't really have writer's block. I knew where I was going with this story, and how I was going to get there, but I just couldn't get the words out properly. It always ended up not even being fanfiction anymore, so I'm sorry.

And this chapter isn't particularly good. It's not at my usual standard and it's horribly short, but I thought that I'd give you this now, instead of keeping it and slowly writing more over the next month.

This isn't even all that I was going to put in this chapter, but I just had to leave it there.

You probably don't even remember what this story is about by now, that happens to me if someone doesn't upload for only two weeks or something.

**Quick Summary**

- The Doctor visited everywhere he went with Rose to remember the times they had.

- He finds that the SS Madame de Pompadour is up and running and the clock droids have been rebuilt. Their leader Nefaro thinks that the ship no longer needs a brain to run it, but a heart to lead it. He decides that the most compassionate heart that he knows of is Rose Tyler's and sets up the Time Windows to follow her life.

- The droids discover the Doctor on their ship and push him through a Time Window to prevent him from ruining their plans.

- The Doctor lives in Pete's room in Rose's apartment as Rose grows up. He follows her to school, makes sure she's okay, goes to parties with her, etc.

- He discovers a future version of himself on New Year's, 2005 and is very confused.

- He tries to escape Rose's life through a Time Window that appears while his ninth incarnation is saving Rose from the Autons in the shop.

- He is pushed back into Rose's life by the droids again, and has to live through everything again and avoid the past version of himself.

- He discovers that he is not the future version of himself that talks to Rose on New Year's, and that there are three version of him running around at that point.

- He recruits Captain Jack Harkness to help him escape Rose's life, though this Jack doesn't recognise him at first, because he hasn't been through the year-that-never-was yet.

- They travel to Cardiff and steal his ninth incarnation's TARDIS while Nine, Rose, Mickey and a past version of Jack are inside a cafe.

- They take this TARDIS to the Valiant in 2007, and the Doctor leaves Jack on the TARDIS while he sets out to find the Paradox Machine so they can steal it.

- Jack escapes from the TARDIS to explore the Valiant and encounters a Toclafane.

- The Toclafane kills Jack.

So, again, I'm sorry that this chapter isn't very good and it isn't very long. But I've decided that my chapters are going to have more dialogue from now on, because no one really likes reading through very long paragraphs of nothing.

Dashing by Rose Kelvin

As we dash by in a blur,  
Just a fleeting glance.  
Breadcrumbs fly everywhere,  
But down which trail shall we advance?

Short and seemingly useless,  
We are quite imperceptibly cunning.  
Spheres and lines and crossed wires,  
And an awful lot of running.

But look carefully within the race,  
Stop to smell the Roses.  
Because aren't we forgetting something?  
Something right under your noses...

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, it belongs to the BBC and etc.

* * *

XXIII

Dashing

The Doctor ran down corridor after corridor of the Valiant as he searched for Jack. The only time he slowed was whenever he heard the marching footsteps of approaching guards. He easily avoided encounters with the guards by running off in a different direction or hiding behind the steaming machinery which seemed to dominate every corridor on the sky-ship. The Doctor thought about calling out once or twice, but knew that would draw the guards to him immediately.

He was rounding another corner when he saw a wire-mesh holding cell, identical to the one he'd been held in earlier. He crept forward but then stopped when he realised that inside the cell, held in chains, was Jack.

"Jack!" he called out in surprise. Jack looked up and grinned at the Doctor, his teeth looking brilliantly white against his grubby face. His clothes were torn and wrecked and his hair was limp and greasy. The Doctor frowned, feeling that something wasn't quite right…

The guard slumped in front of Jack's cell looked up and saw the Time Lord approaching confidently. He unfolded himself and stood up, raising his gun to point at the Doctor. The guard cleared his throat, and the Doctor stopped.

The Doctor looked from the guard to Jack and back to the guard again. "Hang on a minute…" his eyes widened in realisation, "Oh. Oh, right. Sorry, Jack. Better be off. You're not who I'm looking for." He turned and walked back the way he came.

Jack called after him, "But Doctor…wait. What?"

The Doctor didn't reply and soon he'd rounded the corner and disappeared. Jack sighed. The guard looked bemused but just shrugged and sat back down in front of the cell.

* * *

The Doctor continued searching the Valiant for Jack. The right Jack. Thankfully he'd realised that the Jack in chains was the future version of Jack _before_ he'd released him, otherwise he could have seriously altered the timeline. He began running again, determined to find the right Jack before the Captain got himself into too much trouble.

* * *

"Urrggh," Jack groaned as he sat up, rubbing his forehead. He looked down at himself and pursed his lips as he observed the bloodied state of his clothes. He glanced up to see the Toclafane hovering hesitantly a few metres in front of him.

"Now look what you've done," Jack chastised. "This was my favourite shirt."

Jack didn't know if the Toclafane didn't hear him or just had no reply because it just continued to hover. He patted down his front to see that all his wounds had healed before he slowly stood up. Apart from a headache, he seemed fine.

"Why are you still alive?" the Toclafane finally asked.

"Believe me, spherey, I often ask myself the same question," Jack replied.

"You will make a good play-mate then. If you never die, we can play forever and ever and ever."

"Yeah, that sounds great and all, but I've got some other stuff I've gotta do."

"Like what?" it asked.

"Kill you," Jack replied without missing a beat, drawing his sonic blaster out of his pocket and firing it at the Toclafane.

It crashed to the ground with a thud but remained intact. A few lights still blinked on it so the Captain shot it a few more times for good measure.

He stepped over the sphere and towards the raised dais on which the laser screwdriver rested behind a series of crisscrossing laser beams.

"Now, let's see what you were guarding, spherey."

The Doctor was running down yet another steaming corridor of the endless sky ship. He rounded a corner and ran straight into Jack – the right Jack this time. They both fell, and there was a noise like something metal skidding across the floor. The Doctor patted down his suit pocket to check that his sonic screwdriver hadn't fallen out and didn't notice Jack reach out and pocket something.

They both stood up and brushed down their clothes of some imaginary dust.

"What happened to you?" the Doctor asked, gesturing to the bloodied state of Jack's shirt.

"Oh, errr…" Jack hesitated. "Ran into one of those spherey things," he said, truthfully enough.

"A Toclafane? I didn't think they were roaming about. _I_ didn't see any."

Jack just shrugged.

"Right, well, I'm taking you back to the TARDIS. I told you not to come out. There's another you running around, you know. Weeelll…not exactly running around."

"Did you meet me?" Jack asked as they walked back to the TARDIS. "What am I like? Dashing as ever?"

"Yeah, sure," the Doctor muttered distractedly as they narrowly avoided some guards. "You won't get me to say anything. _You_ are none of your business."

"Come on, Doctor, please. I just want to _know._"

"Jack, we're in a delicate enough situation as it is. It's only because of the Paradox Machine that I can bring you here at all, and very soon, the Paradox Machine will be dismantled by you yourself, so I have to make sure that during the time that it's dismantled you stay out of the way."

"But you're here too, aren't you?"

"Yes, but it's a past version of me. So it won't be as dangerous if I run into myself, because he knows nothing that I don't."

"But _you_ know stuff that _he_ doesn't. So it'll be just as dangerous for him," Jack said intelligently.

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to allow it to happen anyway, so it won't matter," the Doctor said dismissively, ending the matter and didn't speak again until they reached the TARDIS.

* * *

I know, it's really short and quite horrible, but I just wanted to get _something_ up after all this time.

Do you like having more dialogue, or do you prefer long paragraphs?

And should I change the summary to make it more interesting?


End file.
